The Tech Capital Team have been on the road this week, with Joao hitting the blackjack in Las Vegas (Ok, not really, he’s been covering the infra/Structure summit there) while Jack and Abigail were at the slightly less risqué but extraordinarily fascinating Wellcome Sangler Institute in Cambridge.

This week’s roundup brings you our coverage of these two events, alongside a whole host of other cloud, data centre and AI related topics.

The big story: OpenAI and Intel grab headlines at opposite ends of the spectrum

We’re going to cheat this week and say that two stories are worthy of the top spot on the roundup.

As we headed into last weekend, news started swirling that struggling chip giant Intel was to be the subject of a $US93 billion takeover bid from rival Qualcomm. Speculation in the industry suggests that it might be tricky to get a mega-merger of this scale approved, but the US’s desire for a healthy chip-maker with manufacturing capabilities (NVIDIA and Qualcomm both outsource to TSCMC) could outweigh anti-trust concerns. Even then, the dominance established by Nvidia is starting to look very much like a monopoly anyway, and an Intel/Qualcomm tie up might be a step in the right direction to creating a

Even if a takeover doesn’t happen, Intel’s recovery plan received a show of faith later in the week as private equity Apollo Global Management emerged as a potential investor to the tune of $US5 billion.

Then we’ve got OpenAI. What a week it was for Sam Altman. News broke that he has been pitching the Whitehouse on 5GW data centres on Wednesday, although it’s disputed whether the OpenAI boss was talking about just one or up to seven mega-facilities. A starry-eyed blog post he released on Monday we didn’t cover, but it’s definitely worth a read, if you need a little pick me up on AI’s ability to transform society. He certainly doesn’t hold back. And then to cap things off, today we covered plans to turn OpenAI into a for-profit. Elon Musk wasnt a huge fan of the idea, although OpenAI claim he was a keen advocate for the switch back before he left the firm, even proposing a merger with Tesla. Read all about that here.

Event Coverage

Wellcome Sangler’s research campus in Cambridge displayed one of the most amazing applications of generative AI we’ve seen to date, accelerating research mapping the human genome (basically turning our DNA into code). This groundbreaking research is made publicly available and will be used in a range of life sciences that can help cure and prevent a whole host of diseases. But without the write investment in academic applications of AI and the infrastructure supporting it, this innovation will not be possible. Find out more about what else Jack and Abi learned here.

Meanwhile across the Atlantic and most of the United States, infra/Structure Las Vegas 2024 was well under way. Taking insights from the exceptional presentations conducted at the show, we’ve mapped out America’s 42GW of data centre capacity through 2029. We also covered some data from the event showing US secondary markets are emerging as the new frontier for data centre growth and AI expansion.

We’ll have more insights coming out of this important industry gathering next week, so stay tuned!

North America

Outside of the two blockbuster stories we covered around OpenAI and Qualcomm, this was a busy week for the US market.

For example Intel wasn’t the only chip-maker that could have a change of owner.  Oracle are targeting a controlling interest in Ampere, in which it already owns 29%

On the data centre front,  PowerHouse and CTP acquired 104 acres for AI data centre development in Virginia, and  IBM completed an expansion of a quantum data centre in New York with ambitions to boost global quantum computing capabilities, and Cipher Mining acquired a 300MW West Texas site for $67.5m

In appointments news a boardroom reshuffle at Aligned ushered in a new CFO, and created a new CIO role, and Extenet bolstered its leadership with new a new CFO appointment.

Elsewhere, Vertiv expanded its North American manufacturing with a New South Carolina facility, and EQT sold part of its stake in EdgeConneX to Sixth Street.

On the connectivity side of the industry, we saw Aqua Comms boosts Trans-Atlantic connectivity with a new AEC-1 fibre pair, Inligo Networks began the development of a cable landing station in Darwin and AT&T and BlackRock revealed plans to bulk up their Gigapower fiber joint venture.

The prospects for nuclear energy supporting data centres received a significant boost this week, with Microsoft planning to power AI facilties through a revived Three Mile Island nuclear plant, and Global financial institutions backed nuclear energy expansion amid rising data centre and AI demand. Google’s CEO also said he was “optimistic” about the money flowing into innovation in new power sources, as it plans GW scale facilities of its own.

Asia Pacific

Over in Asian AI news, South Korean firms committed $50bn to AI development, and Vietnamese and American companies forged partnerships in the energy, AI, and data centre sectors.

LitUp Network and International Gateway Company signed an MoU for a Thai submarine cable system, while OMS Group revealed plans to spend $300m on the subsea ecosystem globally

The Indonesian Government constructing is new national data centres, and one of its largest telcos, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, announced a four-for-one stock split.

Appointments wise, AGP Data Centres appointed ex-AWS head as new global Chief Technology Officer.

Finally, ‘Digital infrastructure should serve as a bridge rather than a barrier,’ India’s PM Modi said, while
calling for responsible tech use at a UN Summit.

Europe

In Europe this week, we saw the CMA delay its investigation into the UK’s cloud market by four months, partly due to the complexity of AWS and Google’s criticism’s of Microsoft’s software licencing fees. Then later in the week, Google expanded the spat, raising a formal complaint with the European Commission.

The Commission also approved a massive deal in Switzerland’s telco market, greenlighting a US$8 billion transaction that will see Swisscomm acquire Vodafone’s business unit.

Significant investments in the UK and EU were announced this week, most notably Blackstone’s US$13bn in a UK AI data centre. Additionally, Nebius plans a $1bn investment in European AI infrastructure, and Equinix opened a new Mediterranean data centre.

Appointments wise DTCP expanded its digital infrastructure strategy as a new head of capital formation real assets joined its London office.

We also covered news that Cellnex is in discussions with advisors over a French data centres sale, and elsewhere in the French market, GIC acquired a stake in the country’s largest independent digital infrastructure fibre platform.

Google said AI can add $400bn to UK economy by 2030, and we also reported on EU data that revealed Cyberattacks on European data centres are surging

Middle East and Africa

Across the Middle East this week, we saw Saudi Arabia expand its data centre infrastructure with a $666m deal between MIS and BSF Capital. And in Qatar, Middle East-focused telco Ooredoo announced a $US550 million financing package to help it carve out and grow its data centre business with a specific focus on AI.

Before we head South, Egypt’s Minister outlined digital infrastructure expansion at this weeks UN Summit.

Raxio launched a data centre in Cote D’Ivoire, and we also saw cloud operator ST Digital tap into DRC’s digital boom via an OADC data centre.

That’s all for this week, stay tuned as we bring you more updates from across the world of digital infrastructure financing next week and for the year ahead! In the meantime, do check our APAC Finance Forum’s website as we gear up for another exec-packed edition.