Nvidia · China · Goldman Sachs · U.S. · Fortune Technology
Whoever can raise capital cheaply and at scale will set the pace
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For China and Europe, the road to closing the technological gap runs through the financial one.
Key facts
- The Stanford HAI AI Index 2026 estimates that last year, private investment in AI in the U.S. was more than 23 times that in China
- In August, Nvidia pulled together six of the biggest names in finance— Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR—to set up financing platforms that could mobilize over $500
- The five largest American hyperscalers alone are on track to spend $730 billion on capital expenditure in 2026
- The continent has one of the world’s largest pools of savings; eurozone households alone hold about 10 trillion euros (about $11 trillion) in bank deposits
Summary
In August, Nvidia pulled together six of the biggest names in finance— Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR—to set up financing platforms that could mobilize over $500 billion for companies building AI infrastructure. It also points to the wider direction of travel in AI. Whoever can raise capital cheaply and at scale will set the pace, and that race still favors the United States, whose capital markets are deeper than anyone else’s. Technological revolutions tend to be remembered for their technologies: steam engines, railways, the internet. AI is reaching its own version of this moment. For half a century, technology was asset-light: software could be written once and distributed to billions at negligible marginal cost. The five largest American hyperscalers alone are on track to spend $730 billion on capital expenditure in 2026.