Broadcom and Intel CEOs say capital, not chips, is AI’s next bottleneck

For the past few years, the AI buildout story has been about scarcity. Not enough chips, not enough memory, not enough power to plug it all into. Now the CEOs of Broadcom and Intel say the shortage that matters most is money. Speaking at the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore on October 12, 2026, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan warned that the rising cost of capital could become the biggest constraint on AI infrastructure expansion. In their view, financing could soon overtake the semiconductor and memory crunches that defined the last stretch of the AI boom. Hock Tan kept his version short. “The biggest constraint is capital.” Lip-Bu Tan offered a slightly expanded take: “It’s capital and the cost of capital.” Demand still outruns supply Neither executive suggested that appetite for AI compute is fading. Both said demand for computing infrastructure is projected to exceed supply until at least 2029 or 2030. The physical side of the equation looks healthier than it used to. According to the executives, earlier constraints in wafers, memory and power have eased over the last two years. Improvements in wafer capacity are expected by 2028-2029, and memory s...