While Wall Street chief executive officers agreed that massive investments in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure must continue, they showed differing degrees of caution regarding the risks involved in the process.

In an interview with CNBC on the 14th (local time) following the release of third-quarter earnings, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, warned that "if the construction of AI infrastructure, including data centers, stops in any way, the U.S. will fall into a recession."

Ted Pick, CEO of Morgan Stanley, also forecasted during a third-quarter earnings conference call on the same day that "while bottlenecks or overbuilding may appear in the process of building AI infrastructure, investments will continue on a massive scale for years to come."

Fink's warning came as public opposition to data centers—citing rising utility bills, water usage, and environmental damage—has emerged as an issue in the U.S. midterm elections on November 3.

Refuting that much of this opposition is based on misinformation, Fink countered that "data centers are not the root of the problem, but are creating more new jobs than ever before."

He stated, "A significant portion of our economy is based on this expansion of capital expenditures for AI infrastructure."

Wall Street analysts forecast that total AI capital expenditures (CapEx) will exceed 1 trillion dollars (approx. 1,338 trillion won) by 2027 and surpass a cumulative 5 trillion dollars (approx. 6,692 trillion won) by 2030.

Pick said the bank's role is to regulate the pace of overly rapid AI capital spending, noting that "because the scale itself is so huge, the growth of the U.S. as well as the global economy depends to some extent on this AI capital expenditure cycle."

He predicted that the baseline scale of annual AI spending over the next 5 to 10 years will be "around 1 trillion dollars (approx. 1,338 trillion won)."

JPMorgan Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jeremy Barnum also said during an earnings presentation on the 13th that the bank is closely monitoring its AI exposure as AI-related capital expenditures continue to rise.

The remarks from the two CEOs came as investors have grown increasingly cautious about AI-related trades over the past few weeks.
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