10月14日：华尔街最大的银行希望乘着人工智能浪潮前行，却又担心被其暗流卷走，因为人工智能基础设施繁荣的诱人前景正与回报问题和新兴安全威胁相碰撞。
Oct 14 : Wall Street's biggest banks want to ride the AI wave without getting caught in its undertow, as the promise of a lucrative infrastructure boom collides with questions over returns and new security threats.
本周，美国最大银行的高管们讨论了人工智能代理人代表客户行动所带来的风险，以及为推动该技术快速增长所需资本和算力需求的不确定性。
Executives at the largest US banks this week discussed the risks of AI agents acting on customers' behalf and the uncertainty surrounding demand for the capital and computing power needed to fuel the technology's rapid growth.
“虽然我们为自己在人工智能投资周期中所扮演的特权角色感到自豪，但没有人知道，随着更广泛的人工智能生态系统成熟，资本和算力的需求将如何演变，”高盛首席执行官大卫所罗门在与分析师的通话中表示。
"While we are proud of the privileged position we play in the AI investment cycle, no one knows how the demands for capital and compute will evolve as the broader AI ecosystem matures," Goldman CEO David Solomon said on a call with analysts.
“这只有在技术和市场持续发展的过程中才会变得更加清晰。这种不确定性凸显了我们在所融资活动类型和风险管理方面保持警惕的重要性。”花旗集团首席执行官简弗雷泽认为，更高的利率不会减缓人工智能基础设施的投资。“我们并未看到更广泛人工智能生态系统投资的放缓。仅仅是算力不足，”她表示，指的是开发和运行人工智能模型所需的算力，这些算力由芯片和数据中心提供支持。
"That will only become clearer as technology and markets continue to develop. This uncertainty reinforces the importance of remaining vigilant around the types of activity we finance and how we manage risk." Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser does not believe that higher rates will slow down the investment in the AI infrastructure. "We're not seeing a slowdown in investment in the broader AI ecosystem. There's simply not enough compute," she said, referring to the processing power needed to develop and run AI models, supported by chips and data centers.
人工智能基础设施建设背后的资本人工智能基础设施投资的规模前所未有。科技巨头已承诺投入数十亿美元用于建设数据中心，而数据中心是训练和运行生成式人工智能模型所需算力的基础。
CAPITAL BEHIND THE GREAT AI BUILDOUT The scale of investment in AI infrastructure is unprecedented. Big Tech has committed billions to building data centers, the backbone of the computing capacity needed to train and run generative AI models.
对华尔街而言，这一建设提供了融资数十年来最大投资周期之一的机会。
For Wall Street, the buildout offers a chance to finance one of the biggest investment cycles in decades.
美国银行首席执行官布赖恩莫尼汉表示，人工智能资本投资的巨额规模对该行的投资级债务和杠杆融资业务至关重要。
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said the enormous amount of AI capital investment is important for the lender's investment-grade debt and leveraged finance businesses.
然而，融资机遇取决于多个未知因素，从算力需求是否能跟上行业雄心勃勃的扩张计划，到数据中心项目能产生的回报，以及当地反对的可能性。
Yet the financing opportunity hinges on several unknowns, from whether demand for computing power will keep pace with the industry's ambitious expansion plans to the returns data center projects can generate and the potential for local opposition.
“AI 投资周期已成为一种自成一体的复杂宏观经济力量，”富国银行首席执行官查理·沙夫在财报后的电话会议上对分析师表示。他补充说，鉴于为该建设所使用的高杠杆融资以及某些行业和供应链价格的上行压力，该建设既带来机遇也带来风险。
"The AI investment cycle has become a complicated macroeconomic force in its own right," Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf told analysts on a post-earnings call. He added that the buildout presents both opportunities and risks, given the significant leverage used to finance it and upward pressure on prices in some industries and supply chains.
“话虽如此，经济的强劲以及这些投资带来的积极力量迄今为止仍超过潜在的下行风险，”沙夫说。
"Having said this, the strength of the economy and the positive forces from these investments have thus far outweighed the potential downside," Scharf said.
利率长期保持高位或进一步上升可能会增加数据中心项目的融资成本，压缩回报，并使借款人偿还债务的成本更高。
Elevated interest rates that stay higher for longer, or rise further, could increase financing costs for data center projects, squeeze returns and make it more expensive for borrowers to service debt.
摩根士丹利首席财务官莎伦·耶沙亚在接受路透社采访时表示，该行在所承担的风险类型上“非常挑剔”。“你担心的是同业和其他公司会放宽信贷标准，而这正是导致问题的根源。我们非常专注于确保自己不参与此类交易。”该行首席执行官泰德·皮克告诉分析师，摩根士丹利参与 AI 融资是“生死攸关”的。
Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Sharon Yeshaya said in an interview with Reuters that the bank was "very discerning" about the types of risks it was taking. "What you worry about is that peers and other firms allow for a loosening of credit standards, and that's kind of what creates the issue. We're very focused on making sure that we're not involved in those types of transactions." The bank's CEO Ted Pick told analysts the involvement in AI financing is "existential" for Morgan Stanley.
投资者也在权衡 AI 繁荣带来的经济收益与贷款给无法实现预期回报的项目可能带来的损失风险。
Investors, too, are weighing the economic benefits of the AI boom against the risk of losses on loans to projects that fail to deliver expected returns.
“如果说科技支出有助于推动整体经济增长，那就是积极且对银行具有重要意义的事情。如果信贷敞口直接与某些项目相关，比如投机性数据中心建设，那就可能在未来导致问题，”持有多只银行股票的盖博基金投资组合经理马克雷·赛克斯说道。
"To the extent that the tech spend is helping drive growth in the overall economy, that is a positive and material to the banks. If the credit exposure is directly related to certain projects like speculative data-center builds, it could lead to issues down the road," said Macrae Sykes, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which holds several bank stocks.
其他投资者则认为，相较于外界的担忧，银行其实更有能力应对这些风险——毕竟在金融危机之后，银行已大幅强化了风险管理措施。
Other investors say that banks are better positioned to manage those risks than some fear, having tightened their risk management practices after the financial crisis.
亨尼西基金的投资组合经理戴夫·埃利森指出，银行并未忽视危机带来的教训，其行事谨慎程度甚至超出了投资者的预期。虽然银行也在为人工智能相关项目提供融资支持，但通常只是作为风险分散的协调方而已。
Dave Ellison, portfolio manager at Hennessy Funds, said banks have not abandoned the lessons of the crisis and are being more careful than investors fear. They are facilitating AI-related financing, but often as arrangers that distribute risk.
防范新兴人工智能风险除了为相关基础设施建设提供资金外，各银行也在积极应用人工智能技术以降低成本、提升生产效率，不过其带来的实际经济效益目前仍难以量化。
RINGFENCING EMERGING AI RISKS Beyond financing the buildout, banks are deploying AI in hopes of cutting costs and boosting productivity, but the financial payoff remains difficult to quantify.
摩根大通首席财务官杰里米·巴纳姆表示：“尽管这一领域极具重要性且前景令人振奋，但对于我们这样规模的机构而言，要取得切实可见的成果仍需漫长的时间。”他还补充道，目前银行的季度财报中尚未体现出相关成效也属意料之中。
"As important and dramatic and exciting as this theme is, it takes a long time to really do things that are visible at an institution of our size," JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum said, adding that it is not a surprise that benefits are not yet observable in the bank's quarterly earnings.
花旗集团的弗雷泽称，该行已切实感受到人工智能带来的成效：新产品开发成本有所降低，开发速度也提升了40%左右。她指出，编程工具的应用不仅简化了开发流程，还使技术供应商相关支出减少了30%。
Citi's Fraser said the bank is already seeing clear effects of the use of AI, such as developing products at lower cost and up to 40 per cent faster. The use of coding tools has eased development and reduced tech vendor expenses by 30 per cent, she said.
“目前人工智能与自动化带来的经济效益已显著超过我们今年以来的投入成本，”弗雷泽说道。该行正借助人工智能技术减少人工操作环节，同时缩短客户服务响应时间。
"We are seeing the financial benefits from AI and automation significantly outweigh the investments we've made year to date," Fraser said. The bank is using AI to reduce the volume of manual processes, as well as response time in client service.
投资者们寄望于人工智能能切实提升美国企业的生产效率，而目前美国股市的估值水平也意味着此类成效不容出现偏差。
Investors are betting on AI to deliver productivity gains across corporate America and valuations of US stocks leave little room for those gains to disappoint.
扎克斯投资管理公司的首席市场策略师布赖恩·穆尔贝里指出：“倘若到明年年底生产效率仍未提升、成本也未下降，投资者便会开始质疑人工智能炒作背后的实际价值。”
"If those gains in productivity and lower costs do not arrive by the end of next year, investors will begin to question the hype of AI," Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management, said.
与此同时，随着人工智能代理系统逐渐具备自主行动能力，新的安全隐患也随之产生。这项技术也在无形中加剧了外部网络攻击带来的威胁。
At the same time, AI agents introduce new security challenges as they gain the ability to act autonomously. The technology is also adding to the threat posed by external cyber attackers.
摩根大通首席执行官杰米·戴蒙表示，该银行正开发工具以应对代理式人工智能风险。
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that the lender is developing tools to navigate agentic AI risk.