Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone, stated in a closed-door presentation to top investors on September 20 that AI deployment has translated into tangible productivity gains and revenue growth for companies. The resulting demand is clashing intensely with real-world infrastructure bottlenecks, forming the most critical investment opportunity today. He likened the current macro environment to "the dawn of 1870," signaling an impending major industrial revolution.

Gray revealed that large model companies Anthropic and OpenAI have achieved annualized revenues of $105 billion (as of July 2025), with their combined valuation soaring to over $2.3 trillion. Within Blackstone's portfolio, 14 AI-related companies saw their annualized revenue grow 21-fold to $525 million. He emphasized that the capital expenditures of five hyperscale data center companies have doubled this year to $820 billion. Blackstone's own data center leasing capacity increased from 1 gigawatt in 2024 to an estimated 6 gigawatts this year, corresponding to nearly $100 billion in capital expenditures. Gray believes that SK Hynix's mere 4x P/E ratio indicates market skepticism about AI investment, rather than a bubble. He added that the enormous construction costs of power infrastructure ($55 billion per gigawatt) and long delivery cycles (GE turbines are backlogged until 2031) highlight the investment value of "hard shortages."