The Next Five

Behind this AI revolution, sits a monumental physical buildout and energy demand. Globally, data centre power consumption will double by 2030 toward 945 terawatt-hours, consuming more power than the entire nation of Japan.

In some regions the strain is already visible: data centres accounted for more than a fifth of Ireland's national electricity consumption in 2022 and predicted to reach nearly a third this year. Stateside, in 2023, when less powerful models existed, roughly a quarter of electricity use in the US state of Virginia was sucked up by data centres. And yet, McKinsey estimates that there will still be $7tn in global data-centre infrastructure investment by 2030.

Then come the Hyperscalers, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle who are expected to spend around $670bn on AI-related capital expenditure this year alone, and nearly $800bn next year. The nine largest AI companies have collectively forecast $4.1 tn in capital expenditure through to 2030, a trillion dollars more than the total 2025 capex of all US non-financial companies combined.

So looking at systems being rewritten, are we witnessing the greatest industrial re-tooling in human history, or is it all too much to handle?

Joining host Tom Parker is Matthew Wright, Chief Strategy Officer at Trade Nation, Walter Pasquarelli, Researcher at Cambridge University and OECD advisor, and Bernard Marr, Author and Futurist.

This episode was recorded on 16th September 2026.

Sources: FT Resources, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, OECD, TTMS, IEA, Hungyichen, SIA

This content is paid for by Trade Nation and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times' Commercial Department. The views and claims expressed are those of the guests alone and have not been independently verified by The Financial Times.