BlackRock CEO warns AI could become 'domain of large firms' if buildout lags

Amid intensifying debate over whether to slow the pace of AI development, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warned Tuesday (local time) that AI risks becoming "the domain of large firms" if infrastructure is not built out quickly enough.

Speaking at a panel discussion at the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto, Fink said, "The faster we can build more capacity, the more we can democratize this and make it available to everyone."

The remarks came as major US AI companies — including Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI — have proposed slowing the advancement of cutting-edge models to allow safety measures to be developed through "voluntary cooperation."

Data center construction in the United States has increasingly faced opposition from local residents and has become a significant political issue ahead of the November midterm elections.

Jon Gray, president of Blackstone, who appeared on the same panel, called Canada "an economically sleeping giant," saying the country could achieve far higher economic growth than most people expect if its tax and regulatory policies were reformed.

Dilhan Pillay, CEO of Temasek Holdings, another panelist, said his firm began investing in Canadian AI companies in 2016. "The problem with these companies is that if we don't have the capital to scale them up, they move to the United States," he said. "That is the biggest challenge we face."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney organized the event to reduce his country's economic dependence on the United States and to attract business investment that has long lagged.