Tony Minella: demand for AI data centers is not going away

Tony Minella, president of the investment company Eldridge Industries, is convinced that demand for AI data centers will only grow and remain sustainable for many years. Speaking at the prestigious Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, he emphasized: this is not a wave of hype, but a fundamental transformation of the economy requiring colossal computational power.

AI as enabler, not magic

Tony Minella emphasizes a pragmatic approach to AI. Eldridge Industries does not believe in a panacea: AI is not a silver bullet that will instantly solve all company problems. But it is a powerful transformation tool (enabler) capable of fundamentally changing how organizations work and compete. This is why Eldridge focuses on investments in infrastructure and startups building their business around AI. This approach allows separating real long-term potential from market hype and speculative waves. In an era when nearly every company claims to be implementing AI, the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff remains a rare skill.

Why data centers will become even more essential

Demand for computational power is neither accidental nor temporary. Here's why growth will be sustainable and long-term:

• Data scale — modern language models require petabytes of information and hundreds of trillions of operations for training
• Geographic distribution — cloud operators are building data centers in different regions, closer to consumers and energy sources
• Competition for leadership — companies are investing tens of billions of dollars in a race for superior infrastructure
• Long-term contracts — corporate and government orders are concluded for 10–15 years with demand guarantees
• Capital intensity — building a data center requires $1–2 billion and many years to break even

All these factors point not to a temporary wave, but to a structural change in the economy. Data centers will become as essential to basic infrastructure as power grids or the internet.

The market believes in infrastructure

At the conference, Minella noted that despite market cyclicality, the strong state of equity markets demonstrates healthy investor confidence. They see in AI infrastructure a long-term source of income. This confirms that we are not talking about a speculative bubble. We are talking about real, tangible needs of the global economy — needs for computing, storage, cooling, and electricity.

What this means

AI will not pass as a trendy fad, and data centers will not become empty. Investments in infrastructure are a strategic priority for the next decade. For companies that control data centers or supply equipment for them, a long-term and stable market is opening up.