Wall Street giant Citigroup has created a new group to focus on opportunities in the hot artificial intelligence infrastructure space, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
The new team is comprised of leaders from Citi’s investment banking and corporate banking teams. We plan to collaborate across sectors such as technology, communications, energy and power, real estate, and cryptocurrencies.
Here are the details:
— Investment bankers Rick Spencer (vice chairman of technology) and Ashish Agrawal (co-head of real estate) will lead Citi’s efforts across the firm’s investment banking operations, the memo said.
*M&A banker Ben Mortimer, head of technology financing Alex Watkins and head of technology corporate banking Doug Baird will also be part of the new team, according to the memo.
* Citi estimates that nearly $3 trillion will be needed by 2030 to fund the buildout of additional data centers and other infrastructure capacity as AI adoption accelerates.
* “Sponsor-owned data center projects are significantly increasing in size and financing is moving from equity to debt. During this construction period, debt financing will require a combination of bank debt, private credit, infrastructure and real estate financing, and structured IG debt,” the memo states.
(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru and Tatiana Bautzer in New York; Editing by Alan Varona)
