German chipmaker Infineon said on Tuesday that the rapid pace of construction of data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) will not slow, despite growing resistance in the US. At the same time, the company expects that the wave of discontent could spread to other countries.
In the US, opposition is growing against the environmental and energy costs of expanding sites. Many winners of the recent midterm elections from the Democratic Party promise to slow these projects.
Infineon CEO Jochen Hanebeck, during a telephone conference on financial results, acknowledged "growing discussions about expanding AI infrastructure." However, he called it "more of an American topic."
"Of course, around the world there are concerns expressed by people who live in close proximity to AI data centers," Hanebeck added. "But in the world there are many regions with very low population density."
In his opinion, operators of such centers and American hyperscalers (large cloud providers that rent computing capacity) will find territories that will not necessarily be located in the US - possibly in other countries where AI data centers can be built.
"I believe that the expansion of data centers will diversify by region. This is a good trend," he said.
Infineon reported on Tuesday a 12% increase in revenue for the fiscal year ended in September and forecasts an acceleration in sales growth to 20% in the current year thanks to demand for AI data centers. The company does not produce the AI processors themselves, like Nvidia, for example, but supplies chips that help deliver electricity from the grid to the sites.
"AI brings real benefits, and its importance will only grow," Hanebeck said, calling the technology "a key driver of our growth and profitability."