大卫·拉姆利（David Ramli）和黄艾柯（Echo Wong）报道，摩根大通资产管理公司的查尔斯·吴（Charles Wu）周三在新加坡举行的SuperReturn会议上向听众表示，外国投资者正日益为北美人工智能计算的发展提供资金。
By David Ramli and Echo Wong Foreign investors are increasingly funding the growth of artificial intelligence computing across North America, JPMorgan Asset Management’s Charles Wu told an audience at the SuperReturn conference in Singapore on Wednesday.
该行亚太区另类投资机构客户策略主管吴先生表示，来自亚洲和海湾地区等地的外国银行及机构投资者（包括养老基金、主权财富基金和保险公司）正在为该行业的扩张提供重要资金，该行业的资本支出已接近1万亿美元。
Foreign banks and institutional investors including pensions, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies from regions including Asia and the Gulf are playing a major part in funding the expansion of a sector where capital expenditure stands at almost $1 trillion, said Wu, the bank’s head of Asia Pacific alternatives institutional client strategy.
他在一个小组讨论会上说：“计算训练资产目前主要集中在北美。在银行和资产管理方面，为这些资产提供资金的资本正变得越来越全球化。”全球投资者如何看待人工智能交易——包括全球数据中心对巨额资金的需求——是本周SuperReturn活动讨论的一个核心话题。大多数小组成员都持积极态度，但也流露出了一些谨慎情绪。
“Compute training assets are still largely in North America,” he said on a panel. “On the banking side and also on the asset management side, the capital providing the funding for these assets is largely becoming more global.”How global investors approach the AI trade — including the mammoth funding needs for the world’s data centers — has been a key topic of conversation at the SuperReturn event this week. Most panelists have struck a positive tone, but there are also detectable notes of caution.
加拿大公共部门养老金投资公司（PSP Investments）基础设施投资高级总监让-克里斯托弗·奥伯特（Jean-Christophe Aubert）表示：“我们在评估风险时非常谨慎。集中度是一个重点，但对我们而言，考虑到我们需要投入的资本规模，我们也在努力理解未来最终该如何实现这些资产的变现。”吴先生指出，虽然美国超大规模云服务商正通过经营现金流为大部分人工智能资本支出需求提供资金，但它们也从债券市场获得了约2500亿美元的资金，并从银行贷款中获得了大致相当的金额。
“We’re being very careful with the way we assess the risk,” said Jean-Christophe Aubert, a senior director of infrastructure investments at PSP Investments. “Concentration is a big point, but also for us, given the amount of capital that we would have to put to work, is trying to understand how can we ultimately realize those assets going forward.”While US hyperscalers are funding much of the AI capex need through operating cash flows, they are also getting about $250 billion from the bond market and roughly the same amount from bank loans, said Wu.
他提醒称，其公司正密切关注包括租赁承诺和集中度风险在内的问题，以及部分融资通过资产负债表外筹集所带来的风险。
He warned that his firm was keeping an eye on concerns including lease commitments and concentration risk, as well as the risk that some of the financing is being raised off balance sheet.
“现实情况是，许多这类融资证券，无论是投资级债券、144a债券、私募配售，甚至是私募信贷结构化交易，似乎都指向了五个关键的超大规模云服务商，”他说道。“它们要么是担保人，要么是租户，要么是资金来源，要么是客户。”虽然美国仍是主导市场，但几位小组成员一致认为，亚洲很可能紧随其后。推理的本质——即人工智能模型的实际应用——受益于靠近终端用户，这将有助于推动该地区对基础设施的巨大需求。
“The reality is a lot of these funding securities, whether you’re talking about investment-grade bonds, 144a, private placements, even private credit structured deals — a lot of them seem to all triangulate to basically five key hyperscaler parties,” he said. “Either as a guarantor, as a tenant, as a funding source, or as a customer.”While the US remains the dominant market, several of the panelists agreed that Asia is likely to be close behind. The nature of inference — the actual use of AI models — benefits from being close to end users, which will help drive huge demand for infrastructure in the region.
“亚洲同样重要，因为它在需求侧和通过实体设备供应侧这两个方面都发挥着有趣的作用，”卡塔尔投资局基金主管莫辛·皮尔扎达（Mohsin Pirzada）表示。“我们开始看到一种去中心化趋势，这是由终端消费者的需求，以及数据主权和安全所驱动的，”他说。
“Asia is equally important as it plays an interesting role in both the demand side of the equation and the supply side through the physical stuff,” said Mohsin Pirzada, head of funds at Qatar Investment Authority. “What we’re starting to see is a decentralization, and that’s being driven by end consumer demand” as well as data sovereignty and security, he said.
小组成员还一致认为，由于各种原因，能源仍然是一个主要的瓶颈。由于天然气是首选的能源，燃气轮机的短缺给试图扩大规模的数据中心带来了挑战。I Squared基金合伙人沈晨华（音译）表示，亚洲的电力市场自由化程度较低，使得获取公用事业服务变得更加困难。
The panelists also agreed that energy remains a major bottleneck for a variety of reasons. With gas being a go-to power source, a shortage of gas turbines is causing challenges for data centers trying to scale. I Squared fund partner Chenhua Shen said Asia’s power markets were less liberalized, making access to utilities harder.
“这成为了亚洲实现跨越式发展的主要障碍，”她说。“但我们仍然在某种程度上保持乐观，因为亚洲拥有非常丰富的可再生能源。”
“It becomes a major obstacle for Asia to leapfrog,” she said. “But we are still very optimistic in a way because Asia enjoys very abundant renewables.”