华尔街对数据中心IPO市场转冷，质疑盈利与融资可行性
Data Center Boom Meets Wall Street Skepticism
揭示了AI基建从一级市场向二级市场传导的关键阻力，直接影响相关标的估值逻辑与融资策略，建议关注IPO进度及资本开支回报周期变化。
This is the focus of a New York Times piece on Wall Street's growing skepticism of the data center boom. The Times is Maureen Farrell, wrote that piece, joins us now. Maureen, great to speak with you. Thank you very much for for joining us. And maybe I could start with a broad question, just having you mark this moment of of transition. So much of the conversation surrounding AI over the last few weeks has been on, this broader existential threat potentially, the anxiety that I think a lot of policymakers and people are are feeling.
这是《纽约时报》一篇关于华尔街对数据中心热潮日益持怀疑态度的报道的焦点。该报的莫琳·法雷尔（Maureen Farrell）撰写了这篇报道，现在与我们连线。莫琳，很高兴与您交谈。非常感谢您加入我们。也许我可以先从一个宽泛的问题开始，请您标记这一过渡时刻。过去几周围绕人工智能的讨论中，很大一部分都在关注这种更广泛的、潜在的生存威胁，我认为许多政策制定者和民众都感受到了这种焦虑。
It does seem from your reporting that that's starting to be manifest now in other parts of this broader AI universe. Exactly. I mean, just a few weeks ago, it really looked like the IPO market, this for the rest of the year was gonna be dominated by data center IPOs. I talked to bankers. They were expecting at least sort of a third of all the IPOs would be data center builders for these AI data centers or the companies that supply power to them.
从您的报道来看，这种情况似乎现在开始在这个更广泛的人工智能领域的其他部分显现出来。确实如此。我的意思是，就在几周前，看起来今年余下的时间IPO市场将完全由数据中心相关的IPO主导。我与银行家们交谈过，他们预计至少三分之一的IPO将是这些AI数据中心的建设者，或者是为它们提供电力的公司。
And very quickly, it's looking like these are gonna be very hard to get done. So it it does feel like a real moment for the first time in the public markets, at least. We're seeing these companies try to tap them. There's a sense that the appetite would be insatiable for anything data center related. And now we're seeing all these, like, existential questions that are, you know, are spilling out into the public markets, and we're seeing investors sort of voice some skepticism too.
而且很快，这些交易看起来将变得非常难以完成。因此，至少在公开市场上，这确实是一个真正的转折点。我们看到这些公司试图进入市场融资。人们曾认为市场对任何与数据中心相关的事物都会有着贪婪的需求。而现在，我们看到这些存在主义问题正溢出到公开市场，投资者也开始表达一些怀疑态度。
What is driving, the sudden res reticence? Excuse me. I can I can speak words? Reticence. Is it is it one or two factors specifically, or is it a combination of all of the things? I mean, what comes to mind is, like, the actual profitability of this technology, the debt ratios of some of these CapEx expenditures. What are the big concerns, or is it just all of the above? I think it's all of the above, and more and more things keep on getting added to the list of the all of the above.
是什么导致了突然的犹豫不决？抱歉，我能说这个词吗？犹豫不决。是单一或两个特定因素，还是所有因素的组合？我的意思是，浮现在脑海中的有这项技术的实际盈利能力，以及一些资本支出项目的债务比率。主要的担忧是什么，还是以上皆是？我认为以上皆是，而且越来越多的事情不断被添加到“以上皆是”的列表中。
I mean, in if you look at so many state and local elections are being data centers are dominating the conversation, and it seems to be one of the few issues that's sort of uniting the right and the left, conservatives, liberals that there there's a lot of wariness about having data centers in local communities. So that's one big thing. And I think even in the last few weeks, the noise has kind of gotten louder on that.
我的意思是，如果你看看州和地方选举，数据中心正在主导对话，它似乎是少数几个能让右翼和左翼、保守派和自由派团结起来的问题之一。人们对在本地社区建设数据中心抱有诸多警惕。这是一个大问题。而且我认为在最近几周，这方面的噪音也变得更大声了。
So that's and we're seeing some issues like permits getting slowed. So I think there's real questions of how are how is this gonna play out on the ground even if people wanna even if companies are planning to commit, you know, billions, trillions, as you say. What's gonna happen on the ground day to day to get this done? Plus now we obviously have rising interest rates, so it's gonna cost so much more. And but, you know, we talked about the existential crises.
所以，我们看到了一些问题，比如许可证审批速度变慢。因此我认为，即使人们有意愿、即使企业计划投入数千亿甚至数万亿美元（正如你所说），在现实层面究竟会如何展开仍存在诸多疑问。日常操作中会发生什么才能完成这些项目？此外，我们现在显然面临利率上升的问题，这意味着成本将大幅增加。而且，我们之前也讨论过生存危机的问题。
It's just one thing after another seems to be giving people pause and real questions around this. Maureen, how are firms looking at these deals? I had Manny Roman on a panel last week and the CEO of PIMCO, and we talked a bit about PIMCO's involvement in projects in Michigan and Louisiana. And and I kind of took away from that conversation PIMCO being involved in those deals not as them kind of giving a rubber stamp to the promise of AI, but feeling like they'd come to some agreement that these deals were good deals.
似乎接二连三的事情让人们犹豫不决，并引发了围绕这一问题的真实质疑。莫琳，各家公司如何看待这些交易？上周我在一个小组讨论中邀请了曼尼·罗曼（PIMCO的首席执行官），我们简要讨论了PIMCO在密歇根州和路易斯安那州项目中的参与情况。从那次对话中我得出的一点印象是，PIMCO参与这些交易并非只是对AI的承诺盖个橡皮图章，而是认为他们已达成某种共识，即这些交易是划算的。
They felt like they were negotiated well and stood them in in good stead. And I think PIMCO in a recent note said, you know, AI has gotten so big and is likely to grow so big, it's now having a a huge macroeconomic impact on the global economy. What insight do you have into the way in which a lot of these firms, private equity firms, other investment firms are thinking about the way they're constructing these deals? Sure.
他们认为这些交易谈判得当，并且对他们大有裨益。我认为PIMCO在最近的一份报告中指出，AI已经变得如此庞大，且可能继续大幅增长，如今它正在对全球经济产生巨大的宏观经济影响。你对许多公司——包括私募股权公司和其他投资公司——在构建这些交易时的思路有何见解？好的。
I mean, it's kind of changing day to day, and that mean, I you're talking about PIMCO. Obviously, that's on the debt side. And so it's I guess there's a sense PIMCO did put out a report. They said it's, you know, more than $5,000,000,000,000, t, again. It's gonna be needed by 2030 to finance this AI boom. So for a firm like them and so many others, it's almost like you have to play in it. There's so much money. You have so much money.
我的意思是，情况每天都在变化。你提到的是PIMCO。显然，这属于债务融资方面。所以我想PIMCO确实发布了一份报告，其中表示到2030年需要超过5万亿美元来为这场AI繁荣提供资金。因此，对于像他们这样的公司以及众多其他公司而言，几乎就像你必须参与其中一样。这里有太多的资金，你有太多的钱。
You're gonna have to put your money into it. But the other question is that so much money is needed. There's a sense that you're gonna have to tap public market investors to build it out, and we haven't really seen that yet. We've seen so much money raised in private markets to fund this out. We've seen so much debt lent to these projects, but we haven't yet seen the IPO market. So I think that's where sort of the pause is coming.
你必须把钱投入其中。但另一个问题是，由于所需资金量巨大，人们认为你将不得不借助公开市场投资者来扩大规模，而我们尚未真正看到这一点。我们已经看到私人市场筹集了大量资金用于支持这一发展，我们也看到向这些项目提供了大量贷款，但我们尚未看到IPO市场的表现。因此，我认为暂停的迹象正源于此。
And there's a question, you know, when you need trillions of dollars, can you do it without the IPO market? And people are people are worried about it. And I'm not saying it they're not gonna be able to get done. It's just gonna be a much tougher road, and it's probably gonna be a lot more expensive than they thought to build it as of right now. Other than the the the finance and and technology concerns, which obviously are huge, how much do you think the politics is playing into this, the outrage over data centers, looming regulation, not just on the technology, but, you know, investing in a place you may try to build out a data center, you may get protests, and then those permits might get reevaluated.
这里有个问题，你知道，当你需要数万亿美元时，你能不依赖 IPO 市场做到吗？人们对此感到担忧。我并不是说他们无法完成，只是道路会艰难得多，而且就目前而言，建设成本可能比他们预期的要高得多。除了明显巨大的金融和技术担忧外，你认为政治因素在其中起了多大作用？人们对数据中心的愤怒、迫在眉睫的监管（不仅针对技术本身），以及在你试图建设数据中心的地方进行投资时可能会遭遇抗议，进而导致许可证被重新评估。
Is that playing is the uncertainty there playing into this? Completely. I think it's just, you know, writ large, it's it's causing worries, and we're really seeing it on the ground. And we just talked about the New Mexico. You just talked about the New Mexico project. There's so many different ways. I think there were questions of what can city and states really do, and we're starting to see that. I mean, even something as simple as you know, not simple, but, like, permitting.
这种不确定性是否在其中起到了作用？完全如此。我认为从宏观层面来看，它引发了担忧，我们在地面上确实看到了这一点。我们刚才谈到了新墨西哥州。你刚刚提到了新墨西哥州的项目。情况有种种不同。我认为人们一直在质疑城市和州究竟能做什么，而我们开始看到这些影响。我的意思是，即使是像许可审批这样看似简单实则复杂的事情。
If the permits aren't in place or they pause them or they slow them down, when you think about these facilities that are tens of billions, even hundreds of billions of dollars, delays like that can be so hugely costly. And just the uncertainty, like, if you can't really plot out your return if you don't know when things are gonna happen. So there I think the uncertainty that's there was a sense there was gonna be uncertainty, of course, every construction project.
如果许可证没有到位，或者被暂停或拖延，考虑到这些设施耗资数百亿甚至数千亿美元，那样的延误会造成巨大的成本损失。还有不确定性，比如如果你无法准确规划回报，不知道事情何时会发生。因此，我认为存在的不确定性是显而易见的，当然，每个建设项目都会有不确定性。
But now there's so much more, and that's gonna be very costly. It's inevitable. Maureen Farrell, great to speak with you.
但现在情况更加复杂，这将带来高昂的成本。这是不可避免的。莫琳·法雷尔（Maureen Farrell），很高兴与你交谈。
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