BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) CEO Larry Fink joined the CNBC panel this week and laid out the scale of what’s needed to power the AI boom. “We’re gonna need over 70 gigawatts of power,” he said, just for the US.
Why This Matters
Fink compared this moment to the birth of the mortgage-backed securities market in the 1970s, when he started his career, calling it the next chapter in financial engineering.
That comparison raises a real question: is this genuinely a new frontier for capital markets, or an uneasy echo of the last time Wall Street got excited about securitizing a fast-growing asset?
The Bull and Bear Case: NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Fink called the AI buildout a source of “a fantastic investment” that could draw growing capital allocation over time, positioning NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s hardware at the center of what he framed as a genuinely new asset class rather than a passing trend.
The entire plan depends on Nvidia’s GPUs holding their value over time rather than depreciating quickly, an assumption short seller Michael Burry has publicly challenged. So far, the companies involved have only signed memos of understanding, not binding contracts.
The Bull and Bear Case: BlackRock
Fink said BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) already has some capital ready to deploy but plans to raise “quite a bit more.” He argued the buildout is also a genuine jobs story, noting that even 100 megawatts of data center construction requires roughly 3 million hours of labor. Fink said the money “has to flow through the American capital markets,” since that’s the largest pool of capital in the world, and framed US leadership in AI as a national priority worth funding quickly.
Fink’s own historical comparison carries risk built in. He likened this moment to the start of the mortgage-backed securities market in the 1970s, a market that later became the center of the 2007-2009 financial crisis once defaults rose faster than expected. BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) is underwriting exposure to a new asset class before pricing and default terms are even settled.
Insider Monkey’s Hedge Fund Data
BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) was held by 79 hedge funds as of Q1 2026, up from 78. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) had 275 holders. Among the six financing partners, Goldman Sachs had 83 holders and Blackstone had 84, putting BlackRock at the lower end of that group.
Conclusion
BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK)’s Fink is betting AI compute becomes as foundational to markets as mortgages once were, but that comparison should remind investors how quickly a hot new asset class can turn risky.
While we acknowledge the risk and potential of BLK as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than BLK and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) vs. Apple Inc. (AAPL): Hedge Funds Favor One over the Other and The Crown Keeps Switching Hands: Apple Inc. (AAPL) vs NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA).
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
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