The Business Times
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Asia’s AI hardware bet has a financing problem

The region can build AI data centres, but the tougher question is how to pay for the GPUs inside them

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    • As chips become the dominant cost in AI infrastructure, a new financing market has emerged around the hardware itself – one with its own lenders, risks, and rules.
    • As chips become the dominant cost in AI infrastructure, a new financing market has emerged around the hardware itself – one with its own lenders, risks, and rules. PHOTO: REUTERS

    Bernie Margulies

    Published Sat, Jun 20, 2026 · 08:21 AM

    THE US cannot sustain its own artificial intelligence boom. Access to power, not capital, is now the biggest bottleneck for new capacity in the country, with new facilities in places such as Virginia waiting as long as seven years for adequate supply.

    China, meanwhile, cannot buy Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs). Washington has restricted AI chip exports since October 2022 and banned every workaround chip that Nvidia designed for the Chinese market. The most recent ban on the Nvidia H20 in April 2025 triggered an announced US$5.5 billion charge for the chipmaker in a single quarter.

    South-east Asia’s advantages are clear: open land, available power, and fast permits.

    Artificial IntelligenceTech In AsiaTech in AsiaAsia-PacificData centresSemiconductors

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