Tech Giants Drive Trillion-Dollar AI Infrastructure and Energy Surge

Global technology companies are aggressively expanding AI infrastructure, with Meta increasing its commitment to an El Paso, Texas data center to $10 billion. This expansion is part of a broader trend where McKinsey & Co. estimates global companies will invest nearly $7 trillion in data center infrastructure by 2030. In Europe, Mistral raised $830 million to purchase 13,800 Nvidia chips for a facility near Paris. Automotive firms are also shifting budgets, with Tesla investing $2 billion into xAI and Rivian delaying its profitability timeline to fund autonomy research.

This infrastructure surge is driving a transition in the energy sector. Vistra Corp has secured agreements to supply nuclear power to Meta and Amazon Web Services, while also moving to acquire Cogentrix Energy for $4 billion. Bloom Energy is providing fuel cell solutions for Oracle and Equinix. Bank of America analysts project a global nuclear energy renaissance worth up to $10 trillion over the next three decades, as AI's share of U.S. electric demand is expected to rise from 4.3% to 11.7% by 2030. NuScale Power and Oklo Inc. are developing small modular reactors to provide more rapidly deployable power options.

These developments face growing opposition from environmental groups. In February 2026, activists in the United Kingdom protested new data center developments, arguing that the high electricity and water requirements threaten national climate targets.