DeepSeek Means More Data Center Capacity Needed, Brookfield SaysDeepSeek Means More Data Center Capacity Needed, Brookfield Says

(Bloomberg) -- The progress made by Chinese startup DeepSeek means that more data center capacity is needed to handle the growing artificial intelligence workload, according to Brookfield Corporation’s Bruce Flatt. 

As the costs of running AI comes down, “more use cases come about and that’s what’s going to happen in the next 10 years,” the investment firm’s chief executive officer told Bloomberg TV in an interview in London on Wednesday. 

Brookfield is investing tens of billions of dollars in data centers and other AI infrastructure, on the expectation that tools built by the likes of DeepSeek and OpenAI will be adopted throughout the global economy. 

Flatt, who has run Brookfield for more than two decades, said the firm’s credit arm, which manages more than $300 billion, is another area of growth and could “quadruple over the longer term.”

“Once in a while we buy something, but we grow methodically” in this space, Flatt added. Asked whether Brookfield was considering buying the minority stake in credit specialist Oaktree Capital Management it doesn’t already own, Flatt said Brookfield was “pretty happy” with the current partner-manager model. 

Speaking on the economy more broadly, Flatt said “if I had to pick a spot where more capital will go over the next 18 months, it’s probably in the United States.” 

Related:DeepSeek’s AI Breakthrough Signals Major Shifts for Data Centers