In this episode of The Big Question, Barclays Europe CEO, Francesco Ceccato, joins Euronews’ business editor, Angela Barnes, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The bank boss shares his views on financing the AI boom and the “fragmented” capital markets in Europe.
ADVERTISEMENTNo single company or government can finance all the AI infrastructure and energy needs required, Barclays Europe CEO, Francesco Ceccato, told Euronews.
His comments came just before US President Donald Trump announced billions of dollars in AI investments in collaboration with major tech companies. The joint venture, named Stargate, is with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank.
It means some $100bn (€96bn) will be deployed immediately – then the investment will be increased up to $500bn (€480bn) over the coming four years.
Urgent need for AI infrastructure investment
The timely conversation also comes off the back of the latest Barclays AI report.
“I think it’s important to tie it [the latest report] together with the report that we published roughly this time last year, which was about the impact that AI can have to boost productivity, and in particular, to support ageing populations who are perhaps becoming less productive – and to aid them in ultimately creating better economic outcomes. This year, what we’re focussed on is how do you actually think about the energy needs of the AI investment that we’re going to have to make,” Ceccato said.
“There is clearly no company or government that can finance all the AI infrastructure or energy needs. We need to see a large investment in energy to support the AI infrastructure. Why is that? Because every application of AI requires lots of computing power. The latest colossus, AI supercomputer that Elon Musk is investing in, has 200,000 GPUs. That requires a huge amount of energy,” he explained.
The AI Barclays report notes how energy demands are going to go up massively between now and 2030.
“Just to give you one metric, the IEA is projecting that 1,000 terawatts per hour (TWh) is going to be needed for all the data centres in the world, and of course it’s data centres that can perform these AI calculations. And therefore, our view is that we need to understand that energy infrastructure, which is critical to supporting AI,” the Barclays boss said.
Is Europe prepared to foot the bill needed to support AI?
Ceccato reiterated that Europe needs to get behind AI infrastructure investments imminently but said it can’t all come from governments because they are fiscally constrained in many cases.
“It can come from the capital markets, but our capital markets in Europe are fragmented and therefore we need to reform them and we need to do that quickly,” he told Euronews.
Path to cleaner energy “a dial” not “a switch”
The Barclays boss also discussed sustainability and how the bank’s strategy revolves around the transition.
“What’s important is to recognise that getting to cleaner energy is a dial and not a switch. That means that we have to keep supporting our clients who are wanting to transition and we can support them with advice, with financing and with facilitation of financing through the capital markets. So that’s the first piece. The second piece is to know that from our perspective, our target of 1 trillion of sustainable and transition finance by 2030 is still something that we as Barclays Europe want to continue to contribute very meaningfully to and that’s what we have been doing.
“The third component of our strategy is to continue to support companies at the early stage in the clean tech business that can continue to drive technological change that can help the energy transition itself,” he added.
The Big Questionis a series from Euronews Business where we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today’s agenda.
Watch the video above for the full conversation with the CEO of Barclays Europe in Davos.
Video editor • Nicolas Coquet
