Michael Dell, who revolutionized the personal computer industry with Dell Technologies in the late ‘90s and is now the 10th richest person in the world, offered his take on the AI wave his company is helping enable, and why he thinks the data center building peak is not yet here.
Dell Technologies’ stock has skyrocketed 32% in the past year alone thanks to the increasing importance of the infrastructure services it provides to customers like OpenAI. While some analysts and tech leaders have claimed the AI industry is in a bubble, Dell said the boom is still going strong because of AI companies’ insatiable appetite for computing power.
If customers were buying without a real need, Dell would be worried, but “we don’t see that at all,” he told CNBC. “In fact, we see kind of the opposite.”
Dell said when it comes to AI, the company’s customers are facing so much demand of their own they are running up against the limits of America’s aging power grid.
“Our customers are immediately deploying whatever infrastructure they get,” he said. “The limiting factor for many of them seems to be, can they get the power into the buildings to supply the energy required.”
