BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says AI infrastructure needs trillions of Americans’ retirement savings

Larry Fink has a number in mind: $10 trillion. That is what the BlackRock CEO believes the United States needs to invest in AI infrastructure over the next decade, covering everything from data centers to power grids to the transmission lines connecting them. And he is not looking to Washington to write the check. Fink’s argument, laid out at the Milken Institute Global Conference among other venues, is that the funding gap for America’s AI buildout is too large for public budgets to fill. The money, in his telling, needs to come from the people who already have it: ordinary Americans, through their retirement accounts, pension funds, and insurance policies. Why pensions are suddenly the hottest topic in AI BlackRock is well-positioned to broker that introduction. The firm entered 2026 managing approximately $14 trillion in assets, with more than half of that tied directly to retirement-linked accounts. It pulled in over $700 billion in net inflows during 2025 alone, giving it an enormous pool of capital to direct toward infrastructure projects. The firm is not just theorizing. BlackRock has already established what it calls the AI Infrastructure Partnership, a vehicle designed to ...