
AI Investors Pivot To Data Infrastructure Hard Assets
👇️ Feature: AI Pivot To Data Infrastructure Hard Assets & “Powered Land”
Tech News: Regional Banks Fear Hits Wall Street, China Tensions, Shutdown layoffs Halted, YouTube Corruption Probe, ICE Body Cams & AI Surveillance
Company Watch: Blackrock, MS, Nvidia AI Infrastructure Partnership, Oracle’s $65B Deals, Deel’s $17.3B valuation, Salesforce, and General Intuition Raise
Latest Buzzy Tools & Technologies + Space News+ Blockchain & Crypto News
Tariff Tensions Rise — U.S. and China face a critical trade standoff over tariffs and import limits on critical minerals. The Pentagon plans to stockpile $1B in critical minerals, aiming to reduce reliance via Trump’s $7.5B Defense Logistics Agency.
Regional Banks Fear — Wall Street dipped as regional bank troubles, particularly Zions Bancorporation's 13% share drop, rattled investors. The S&P 500 fell 0.63% amid weak insurance results and China tensions. Fed Gov. Waller backed a rate cut.
Fund Managers Wary — A Bank of America survey shows 54% of fund managers see tech stocks as overvalued. Concerns about an AI stock bubble are rising, with Sam Altman also acknowledging potential overhyping in the sector.
YouTube Corruption Probe — Five Democratic senators, including Warren and Sanders, are probing YouTube's $24.5M settlement with Trump alleging a potential illegal bribe aimed at influencing antitrust cases.
ICE Accountability Tech Push — A federal judge ordered ICE agents in Chicago to use body cameras to ensure accountability. This faces logistical issues but sets a precedent for tech adoption in federal law enforcement.
AI Surveillance Showdown — The Electronic Frontier Foundation sues the Trump administration, alleging AI-driven surveillance of non-citizens' social media. The lawsuit cites 1st Amendment violations and could reshape digital rights in the AI era.
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TechBuzz Editorial
With valuations stretched and data flows stalling, big money is moving from algorithms to assets like servers, semiconductors, and land. A few years ago, the center of tech investment was software and startups. This week, it was steel, chips, and power plants. Blackrock, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, xAI, Meta and Apple all announced big money shifts towards servers, semiconductors, and land.
BlackRock, Microsoft, and Nvidia just led a $40B purchase of Aligned Data Centers, a network that holds more than 5 gigawatts of capacity across about 80 sites. The deal launches the AI Infrastructure Partnership and shows how investors now treat data centers as long-term assets, not side projects.
At the same time, a Bank of America survey of global fund managers found that 54% believe tech stocks are overvalued, with AI now seen as the biggest tail risk to markets. Yet these same investors are doubling down on the physical layer of the AI economy. Their reasoning is simple: the demand for compute is rising faster than the world can build the capacity to power it.
This may be evidence of a deeper turn in how capital sees technology. Investors are pivoting towards the infrastructure that allows AI to exist.
Across the sector, money is pouring into the physical side of intelligence. Each of these moves this week or last, reflect a shift toward ownership of compute capacity as the most reliable way to take part in the AI economy. The supply chain is reorganizing around it.
Meta just revealed yesterday it is building a $1.5B data center in El Paso, Texas, designed to handle 1 gigawatt of power while using almost no water.
Oracle announced it has secured $65B in cloud commitments in just 30 days, confirming Meta as one of its largest clients.
Elon Musk's xAI is currently raising $20B in debt and equity with support from backers like Nvidia in order to acquire Nvidia processors for its Colossus 2 data center project in Memphis.
ABB, a EU-based industrial tech company that builds the physical systems keeping modern infrastructure running just reported an 11 percent jump in revenue and a 12% rise in profit, fueled by strong demand from new data center builds in the US. It aims to produce 90% of its products locally in the U.S. by investing in domestic factories. Meanwhile SoftBank just bought ABB’s robotics division for $5.4B giving it a deep warchest and a close industrial automation partner.
AMD signed a $6B deal last week with OpenAI to deploy 6GW of Instinct GPUs, starting with 1GW in 2026, potentially acquiring a 10% stake in AMD through stock warrants. This partnership boosts AMD's position in the AI market while reducing OpenAI's reliance on Nvidia. The deal is part of OpenAI's broader strategy to build a massive AI infrastructure, committing $1 trillion to various suppliers
And finally, European hyperscaler Nscale landed one of the largest GPU infrastructure contracts ever — 200,000 Nvidia GB300s for Microsoft data campuses in Texas and Portugal.
Another spin on this is that land near power substations and fiber routes has become the hottest property on earth. Industrial zones once seen as low-margin are now prime targets for data infrastructure. In some U.S. regions, land values have doubled in months as developers race to secure grid access. Local governments see a rare opportunity for long-term jobs and stable tax bases.
Cities like El Paso are actively re-branding around these facilities, offering incentives to draw hyperscalers. Data centers, once hidden behind fences, are now central to regional planning and energy policy.
This “Powered Land” surge is evidence of a massive energy buildout. Apple just signed contracts for 650 MW of renewable energy across Europe and is investing $150M in China to help suppliers transition to clean power. Analysts expect AI-linked power use to lift global electricity demand by up to 30% within a decade.
The result is a global construction effort that ties together real estate, software companies, utilities, chipmakers, and investors who once worked in separate industries. The AI boom is now a power and property business.
But behind these optimistic projections, the rush into hard assets can also be seen as a response to instability. Tariff tensions continue to pressure supply chains,and increasingly banks, fund managers and major Wall Street firms are warning of an AI bubble bursting. We all know massive scale real estate buy-ups are a major strategy by big money in market downturns. After the 2008 crash, Blackrock and others went on a value-priced land buying spree. Could they be preparing to rinse and repeat?
Physical assets like land, buildings, and power offer a kind of certainty that stock prices and sentiment do not, and the real money will be made on the upside of the next cycle rather than buying stocks at overvalued prices.
The story of AI began with imagination and code. It now depends on the limits of power, land, and materials. Investors appear to be reacting to that reality. The next phase of technology growth could be measured not so much by downloads or users, but by megawatts and square footage.
“With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the future of AI.”
Apple — Reaffirmed its commitment to China amid trade tensions, supported by rising iPhone shipments. The iPhone Air launches in China Oct 17 with eSIM support. New M5 chip-powered MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro models launched.
OpenAI — Secured a $6B deal with AMD to enhance AI. Hit $13B in ARR to bridge a $1T spending gap over decade. Plans to introduce adult content in ChatGPT. Former Apple CEO says OpenAI is its’ first significant competitor in decades.
Meta — Building a $1.5B AI-optimized data center in Texas for 1 gw of power with zero water use most of the year. Also introduced new open hardware standards for AI data centers at the OCP Summit with AMD,.
AI Infrastructure Partnership — The investor group including BlackRock, Microsoft, and Nvidia is acquiring Aligned Data Centers (80+ data centers/5GW) for $40B — its first deal aimed at meeting AI infrastructure demand.
Oracle — Secured $65B in cloud commitments in 30 days, with Meta as a key client. Aiming for $20B in AI revenue by 2030, it is poised to challenge Amazon and Google by leveraging improved supply chains and customer diversification.
Deel — The HR platform hit a $17.3B valuation on raising a $300M Series E co-led by Ribbit Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. In profit for three years, surpassing $1B in ARR from 35,000+ customers globally.
Salesforce — The cloud software giant reported an optimistic AI outlook, boosting its stock value. With strong growth in its AI-driven products, it is defying skeptics and solidifying its market position.
General Intuition — Raised $134M in seed funding to develop AI agents trained on gaming videos for spatial-temporal reasoning. The startup plans to create intelligent bots for gaming and robotics, leveraging 2B gaming clips annually.
Real Estate Giants — Developers are acquiring 'powered land' for data centers due to a 40,000-acre demand surge over five years. With only 20,000 acres available, firms like Hines and Silver Lake are shifting focus to power-rich areas.
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BitMine's Buyup — BitMine acquired 104,336 ETH worth $417M during a market dip, boosting its holdings to 3.03 million ETH valued at $12.2B. This aligns with its aim to capture 5% of Ethereum's supply, as analysts stay optimistic on growth.
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