BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warned that halting U.S. data center construction could trigger a recession, while also sounding the alarm on the country's growing national debt.
Speaking in a CNBC interview on Wednesday, Fink said "a moratorium of some sort in this country" would put the U.S. in a recession, commonly defined as two straight quarters of shrinking economic output. He was referring to a potential push to stop data center buildouts amid concerns over their environmental impact. Data centers are the large facilities housing computers that power artificial intelligence.
"So much of our economy is based on the buildout of this capex," Fink said. He pushed back on criticism of data centers, calling fears about their impact "misinformation" and stating "Data centers are not the problem." He also pointed to job creation tied to construction, energy infrastructure and AI compute hardware demand.
A Pew Research Center survey found at least 49% of Americans say data centers are mostly bad for the environment, home energy costs and quality of life for nearby residents. Moody's estimates planned capital spending on U.S. data centers at $700 billion this year, rising to between $2.4 trillion and $2.48 trillion through 2030, with global spending expected to reach $7 trillion by the end of the decade.
