Show notes
Tony Kim is Managing Director and Head of the Global Technology Team within Fundamental Equities at BlackRock. Recorded at the RAISE Summit in Paris, where Tony spoke on 4 panels, next-gen accelerators with d-Matrix, quantum computing with PsiQuantum, optics in data center design with Lumentum, and XPU and AI chip co-design with Broadcom.
Tony breaks down the shift from a software-centric world to a compute-centric one, and why roughly $1 trillion of CapEx this year, and $10 trillion over the next 5 years, is being spent to move data centimeters and millimeters. He maps the market cap transformation, roughly $10 trillion in software, services, and internet, $20 trillion in Mag 7, and $30 trillion in non-Mag 7 chips and hardware.
We cover the RAMpocalypse and why memory intensity is skyrocketing as AI models start to mirror the human brain, the 3 to 4 year duration mismatch between fab buildouts and today's demand, and the move from copper to light inside the data center.
Tony also lays out his capital allocation framework, 90% in the 3-year AI vortex and the rest on frontier bets like quantum, orbital data centers, SMRs, and 800-volt power architectures, all converging on 2030. Plus, the coming wave of 30 to 40 Chinese robotics IPOs, mixing Chinese robot bodies with Western brains, his contrarian case for social robots addressing loneliness and aging populations, token flow as the new enterprise framework, and the mentors who shaped his career.
We cover:
βΊ Why AI is forcing a complete rebuild of data centers
βΊ The shift from software to compute
βΊ Why memory becomes the next critical bottleneck
βΊ The future of AI chip co-design
βΊ How investors should think about AI infrastructure
βΊ Quantum, orbital data centers and the road to 2030
βΊ Why robotics could become AI's next trillion-dollar market
βΊ China's robotics advantage
βΊ The enterprise AI stack and "token flow"
βΊ How BlackRock evaluates long-term technology investments
Tony Kim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-kim-3150053/
Molly OβShea: https://x.com/MollySOShea
Sourcery: β https://x.com/sourceryy
πππππππ ππππ
YouTube: https://youtu.be/zXB-LI7skL8
ππππππππ
β’ BrexβThe modern finance platform, combining the worldβs smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery
β’MongoDBβMillions of developers and more than 65,200+ customers across industries, including ~75% of the Fortune 100, rely on MongoDB for their most important applications. With integrated capabilities for operational data, search, real-time analytics, & AI-powered data retrieval, MongoDB helps organizations everywhere move faster, innovate more efficiently, & simplify complex architectures. https://mongodb.com/ai
β’AssemblyAIβMillions of developers use AssemblyAI to power their voice ai applications and features. One API gives you access to best-in-class speech-to-text, voice agent, and speech understanding models for both pre-recorded and real-time audio. Granola, ClickUp & HeyGen are scaling with AssemblyAI - get $50 of free credits today at http://AssemblyAI.com/sourcery
ππππππππππ
(00:00) Tony Kim, Head of BlackRock Fundamental Equities Global Technology
(01:10) Secret Location, Croissants, and the RAISE Summit
(03:52) Why Compute now rules everything
(05:17) Why old data centers can't survive AI
(07:43) Why data centers are ditching Copper for Light
(10:44) The shortage nobody saw coming: RAM
(15:20) Only three companies control memory
(16:03) Tony's Playbook for Investing in the AI Era
(18:16) The 20-year lie: "Compute is just a Commodity"
(22:38) How Hardware quietly became bigger than Software
(27:49) The Investing Rule: Will you still be cool in 5 years?
(32:41) 2030: the year every frontier technology bet converges
(38:16) Chips were never a Commodity
(41:30) Rack design, materials science, and the physical-world renaissance
(43:30) Inside the architecture of a Robot's mind
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
