🎙️ podcast Analysis November 24, 2025 a16z Podcast by Andreessen Horowitz

The Gigawatt Data Center Arms Race: Why Infrastructure Bottlenecks Are a Pricing Problem, Not a Physics Problem

Data Center Infrastructure Power Management Utility-Scale Power
Tickers
2 Picks
Conviction MEDIUM
Risk Profile 2.5/10 (MODERATE RISK)
Horizon 18-36 months

Executive Summary

Epoch AI's data reveals the AI infrastructure buildout is accelerating faster than consensus believes, with Anthropic surprisingly leading the gigawatt race. Market Consensus: 'Energy bottlenecks will slow AI scaling.' Variant Perception: Energy constraints are pricing problems, not physics problems - companies are paying 2x for power but still scaling because GPU costs dwarf infrastructure costs. The guests' satellite imagery analysis shows Microsoft's Fairwater project (half of NYC's power con...

Key Investment Opportunity

Data Center Cooling Infrastructure - The Hidden Bottleneck

While everyone focuses on chip supply and power generation, cooling systems are the actual constraint. Vertiv's thermal management technology becomes critical as data centers approach gigawatt scale. The company's positive free cash flow ($1.37B) and strong margins demonstrate pricing power in a sup...

...and 1 more investment opportunities

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