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郑迪
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E215 | A Capital Markets Take on Where the Money for Trillion-Dollar Infrastructure Comes From—and Six Ways to Break the Power Bottleneck
The U.S. AI data-center power shortfall is estimated at 46—47GW, making mining-site conversion a disputed but fast bridge within 18—24 months. A 1GW facility costs $45B—$50B, with GPUs at 70%—80%; power, financing, delivery, rent and AI monetization remain key watchpoints.
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- The U.S. AI data-center power shortfall over the next several years is estimated at 46—47GW, equivalent to the average load of roughly 8 New Yorks and $2.3T in capex. Nuclear, gas turbines, fuel cells and solar-plus-storage are all unlikely to scale within 2—3 years, while moving training workloads offshore and using diesel backup face diplomatic and environmental constraints; converting mining sites, despite contributing only a contentious 6—15GW, is still the fastest solution within 18—24 months. “Even at the low end, 6GW is still a lot of power.”
- Zheng Di estimates that the all-in cost of a 1GW AI data center is $45B—$50B, with GPUs accounting for roughly 70%—80%; Hong Jun therefore sees Nvidia at the value center of the entire infrastructure cycle. A 1GW IT load requires 1.1—1.2GW of actual power supply, with liquid cooling, water plants and captive power generation built in parallel; scaled to 100GW, the total reaches $4T—$5T, making the real constraints not just chips, but whether power, sites and capital can arrive simultaneously.
- Owning power does not mean a miner can convert it into AIDC cash flow, and the market is expressing that skepticism through valuations below the $11—$13/W construction cost. IREN would be valued at only about $6—$7/W if its full planned 2.9GW were included, while Bitdeer, Hut 8 and others are as low as $2—$3/W; the discount prices in the risks around 24×7 supply, construction delivery, customer contracting and financing dilution. “The market does not believe you can convert all your power into the kind of power an AIDC needs.”
- IREN’s 5-year, $9.8B contract with Microsoft exposes the key dividing line in miner conversions: whoever buys the GPUs takes on greater financing and depreciation risk. About $5.8B goes toward GPUs, while Microsoft prepays only $1.95B; the remaining gap may need to be filled through bonds, preferred equity, project finance and ATM offerings. By contrast, miners that lease power and sites to CoreWeave do not need to buy GPUs and can match 12—15-year contracts with 20-year site depreciation.
- AI infrastructure financing may ultimately migrate from corporate cash flow to investment-grade debt, high-yield debt, private credit, ABS, CDOs and REITs, with the business model increasingly resembling rolling real-estate development. JPMorgan estimates the investment-grade market can provide $300B next year and $1.5T over the next 5 years, but Zheng Di’s experience in 2008 carries a warning: securitization technology is neutral; the real danger lies in deteriorating underlying rents, ignored fat tails and correlations spiking in tandem with default rates.
- “Underinvestment is more dangerous than overinvestment” is first a prisoner’s dilemma for CEOs, not proof that a bubble has already been disproven. Big-tech operating cash flow may already be consumed by capex, with the debt cycle only beginning; even if overinvestment is confirmed 3—5 years from now, the more likely initial outcome is years of debt repayment and depressed share prices. Whether this becomes a bubble and overcapacity still depends on whether Claude programming, OpenAI’s enterprise Token customers and industrial applications can generate real profits.
- OpenAI is simultaneously Nvidia’s “catfish” and a “too-big-to-fail” node in U.S. AI, making the IPO window more important than the valuation debate. Zheng Di believes a $1T valuation supported by roughly $13B in annual revenue or $20B of ARR still looks stretched, but a 2027 listing could be too late to deliver on the $1.4T construction commitment; key opportunities among miners include Riot, CleanSpark and Hut 8, which have cheap power but no signed orders, as well as Bitdeer, whose prospects have a binary geopolitical dimension.