Goldman sees an AI bottleneck that can't be vide-coded away. Ford's CEO warns it's already a 'full-blown' crisis | Fortune

"“Even if the data centers get built, there's still a huge question mark about how the energy sector will support them. And there's obviously going to be large shortages.” The U.S., in his telling, is in “the second or third inning” of taking this seriously."

"Goldman Sachs Alternatives, which manages more than $625 billion in alternative assets, argues that the companies capturing roughly 90% of AI's profit pools today—chip designers, memory manufacturers, and semiconductor fabs—represent none of the physical bottlenecks that will determine whether artificial intelligence can actually scale. Power generation, grid infrastructure, high-voltage components, advanced cooling, and mission-critical services collectively account for about 10% of AI-related earnings, Goldman says, but 100% of the chokepoints."

"“Many investors are still looking to replicate past successes in data centers,” argued the co-authors Leonard Seevers, Jason Tofsky, and Sydney McConathy, “missing the critical chokepoints that will define the next phase of growth.”"

"The catalyst is the emergence of so-called agentic AI: autonomous, always-on systems capable of running continuously across workflows, rather than responding episodically to user prompts. Goldman estimates these systems will be 60x to 130x more energy-intensive than the AI tools most people use today. The math compounds fast. Studies suggest agents use roughly 4x more computing tokens than standard chat interactions."

The most expensive technology buildout faces a physical-world bottleneck: insufficient electricians, linemen, and tradespeople to construct the infrastructure AI requires. Data center expansion is shifting into an energy crisis that is also a labor crisis, with shortages expected even if facilities are built. Goldman Sachs Alternatives argues that companies capturing most AI profit pools today do not control the physical chokepoints that determine whether AI can scale. Power generation, grid infrastructure, high-voltage components, advanced cooling, and mission-critical services account for a small share of earnings but represent the full set of constraints. Agentic AI increases demand further by requiring far more energy than current AI tools and using substantially more computing tokens than standard chat.

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