Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: AI Capital Demand Outstrips Supply as Neocloud Stocks Slide on Debt Fears
Huang highlights a severe scarcity of capital for AI infrastructure at GTC Berlin, even as neocloud shares drop amid concerns over heavy borrowing.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated during an interview with CNBC at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in Berlin that "the demand of the capital is much greater than the availability of the capital." This comment comes amidst significant volatility in AI compute leasing companies, known as "neoclouds" such as CoreWeave and Nebius, highlighting the funding bottleneck facing AI infrastructure buildout.
Despite Huang's assertion that "the demand for the neo clouds is off the charts," market sentiment has been dampened. CoreWeave shares fell 10% and Nebius dropped 7% this week, driven by investor concerns over their heavy borrowing and lack of credit ratings. An executive at an AI infrastructure company told CNBC that the magnitude of unrated businesses was "freaking the market out."
To address revenue losses from deployment delays, Nvidia announced a new product packing seven Vera Rubin AI racks into a shipping container to speed up data center activation via the supply chain. Huang noted that a 1-gigawatt data center costs approximately $50 billion, while Goldman Sachs estimates total AI-related capital spending could reach $7.6 trillion between 2026 and 2031.
Huang believes the missing element is working capital to fuel growth but added that this scarcity "is going to get solved." However, conversations on the conference floor suggest many industry participants expect capital, rather than power or chips, to become the next major bottleneck.