{"id":219867,"date":"2025-10-23T08:33:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/219867\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T08:33:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:33:19","slug":"i-squared-ceo-on-the-ai-boom-i-politely-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/219867\/","title":{"rendered":"I Squared CEO on the AI boom: \u2018I politely decline\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the world\u2019s biggest infrastructure investors has sat out the AI data center boom \u2014 and thinks those diving in may end up regretting it.<\/p>\n<p>I Squared Capital isn\u2019t squeamish: It has backed Indian toll roads, Malaysian solar farms, and refrigerated warehouses in the Philippines. But the current rush into AI infrastructure \u2014 on the promise that Microsoft, Google, or other hyperscalers are rock-solid offtakers\u2014 is too rich for CEO Sadek Wahba\u2019s blood.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe usage is still unproven. Are these AI models going to be profitable? I don\u2019t know,\u201d Wahba, whose firm manages $50 billion, said in an interview. \u201cWhen you start unpeeling the onion, it\u2019s much more volatile and uncertain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Data centers\u2019 huge needs for power, water, and industrial components that are in short supply \u2014 anyone needing one of GE Vernova\u2019s gas turbines <a href=\"https:\/\/www.energyconnects.com\/news\/utilities\/2025\/march\/ge-vernova-ceo-sees-order-backlog-stretching-into-2028\/#:~:text=Some%20of%20those%20customers%20are%20having%20to,power%20transformers%20and%20switchgear%20stretches%20into%202028.\" class=\"styles_linkEmbed__SNmaX\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">will have to wait until 2028<\/a> \u2014 add to the risk, Wahba said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t have this sense of the input, which is the technology and how fast it\u2019s going, and the output, which is \u2026 it may replace [millions of workers] or may in fact do absolutely nothing,\u201d he said. \u201cI politely decline.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the world\u2019s biggest infrastructure investors has sat out the AI data center boom \u2014 and thinks&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-219867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}