ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

“AI is not only an innovation itself but has the potential to accelerate other innovation.” – Blackrock

This quote originates from BlackRock’s 2026 Investment Outlook published by its Investment Institute, emphasizing AI’s dual role as a transformative technology and a catalyst for broader innovation across sectors like connectivity, security, and physical automation.⁶ BlackRock positions AI as a “mega force” driving digital disruption, with potential to automate tasks, enhance productivity, and unlock economic growth by enabling faster advancements in other fields.^5,6

Context of the Quote

The statement reflects BlackRock’s strategic focus on AI as a cornerstone of long-term investment opportunities amid rapid technological evolution. In the 2026 Investment Outlook, BlackRock highlights AI’s capacity to go beyond task automation, fostering an “intelligence revolution” that amplifies innovation in interconnected technologies.^1,6 This aligns with BlackRock’s actions, including launching active ETFs like the iShares A.I. Innovation and Tech Active ETF (BAI), which targets 20-40 global AI companies across infrastructure, models, and applications to capture growth in the AI stack.^1,8 Tony Kim, head of BlackRock’s fundamental equities technology group, described this as seizing “outsized and overlooked investment opportunities across the full stack of AI and advanced technologies.”¹ Similarly, the firm views active ETFs as the “next frontier in investment innovation,” expanding access to AI-driven returns.¹

BlackRock’s commitment extends to massive infrastructure investments. In 2024, it co-founded the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP, later AIP) with Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), Microsoft, and MGX, aiming to mobilize up to $100 billion for U.S.-focused data centers and power infrastructure to support AI scaling.^2,3,9 Larry Fink, BlackRock’s Chairman and CEO, stated these investments “will help power economic growth, create jobs, and drive AI technology innovation,” underscoring AI’s role in revitalizing economies.² By 2025, NVIDIA and xAI joined AIP, reinforcing its open-architecture approach to accelerate AI factories and supply chains.³ BlackRock executives like Alex Brazier argue AI investments face no bubble risk; instead, capacity constraints in computing power and data centers demand more capital.⁴

BlackRock’s Backstory and Leadership

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $11.5 trillion in assets, evolved from a fixed-income specialist founded in 1988 by Larry Fink and partners at Blackstone into a global powerhouse after its 1994 spin-off and 2009 Barclays acquisition.² Under Fink’s leadership since inception, BlackRock pioneered ETFs via iShares (acquired 2009) and Aladdin risk-management software, managing $32 billion in U.S. active ETFs.¹ Its AI strategy integrates proprietary insights from the BlackRock Investment Institute, which identifies AI as interplaying with other “mega forces” like geopolitics and sustainability.^5,6 Fink, a mortgage-backed securities innovator during the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis, has championed infrastructure and tech since steering BlackRock public in 1999; his AIP comments frame AI as a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity.^2,3

Leading Theorists on AI as an Innovation Accelerator

The idea of AI accelerating other innovations traces to foundational thinkers in technology diffusion, general-purpose technologies (GPTs), and computational economics:

• Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (MIT): In The Second Machine Age (2014) and subsequent works, they argue AI as a GPT—like electricity—initially boosts productivity slowly but then accelerates innovation across industries by enabling data-driven decisions and automation.^5,6 Their research quantifies AI’s “exponential” complementarity, where it amplifies human ingenuity in fields like biotech and materials science.

• Bengt Holmström and Paul Milgrom (Nobel 2019): Their principal-agent theories underpin AI’s role in aligning incentives for innovation; AI reduces information asymmetries, speeding R&D in multi-agent systems like supply chains.²

• Jensen Huang (NVIDIA CEO): A practitioner-theorist, Huang describes accelerated computing and generative AI as powering the “next industrial revolution,” converting data into intelligence to propel every industry—echoed in his AIP role.^2,3

• Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO): Frames AI as driving “growth across every sector,” with infrastructure as the enabler for breakthroughs, aligning with BlackRock’s partnerships.²

• Historical roots: Building on Solow’s productivity paradox (1987)—why computers took decades to boost growth—theorists like Robert Gordon contrast narrow tech impacts with AI’s potential for broad acceleration, as BlackRock’s outlook affirms.⁶

These perspectives inform BlackRock’s view: AI isn’t isolated but a multiplier, demanding infrastructure to realize its full accelerative power.^1,2,6