Goldman Sachs' John Waldron Dismisses AI Capex Concerns, Says It Will Continue At A ‘Very Healthy Clip’

• Waldron added that he expects the U.S. to lead the AI capex buildout, even though Europe is trying to catch up and China continues to build out its own infrastructure.
• He highlighted that the firm is seeing real signs of efficiency, scalability, and resiliency, while noting the potential to grow the company without investing as much to increase headcount.
• Waldron also stated that the implementation of AI technology will materially change the company’s workflow processes.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President John Waldron on Tuesday dismissed concerns about a slowdown in capital expenditure to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure.

During an interview with CNBC, Waldron stated that the AI capex buildout is beginning to go global.

“I think the supply of AI infrastructure is going to continue at a very healthy clip. I don’t see any change in the posture of the major hyperscalers and those that are really putting in the infrastructure around,” Waldron said.

He said that Goldman Sachs is very bullish on the stimulus that the AI capex buildout will provide to the economy, just from a business standpoint.

US To Lead AI Capex Buildout, Says Waldron

Waldron added that he expects the U.S. to lead the AI capex buildout, even though Europe is trying to catch up and China continues to build out its own infrastructure.

“Big question mark is whether the deployment, particularly on the enterprise side, catches up to that supply. I would say, as an executive at Goldman Sachs, responsible for some of my partners for executing that, we’re bullish,” he said.

Waldron also highlighted that the firm is seeing real signs of efficiency, scalability, and resiliency, while noting the potential to grow the company without investing as much in headcount. He added that this does not necessarily indicate a decrease in headcount.

“We can actually scale the firm, be more valuable to our clients… I think a lot of enterprises are starting to see that,” Waldron said.

AI Will Change Workflow Processes Materially, Says Waldron

Waldron believes that implementing AI technology will materially change the company’s workflow processes.

He said the manufacturing sector has increasingly adopted robotics and automation, and that generative AI will help companies like Goldman Sachs undertake a digital transformation along similar lines.

“Digital agents will be our robots. They will start to change the way our workflow processes in the firm, broadly across a number of aspects of how we operate our firm,” Waldron added.

He also downplayed concerns that this change would impact jobs, stating that new jobs would be created. However, he noted that he is unsure what the overall headcount will be once these changes are implemented.

Waldron Remains Cautious About The Impact Of Automation

While expressing optimism about AI's potential to make enterprises scalable, Waldron remained cautious about the benefits firms can reap from automation.

“Companies are still experimenting. We’re trying to figure out how this modeling can work for us. You’ve got to set up governance infrastructure, that’s complex,” he added.

Waldron also stated that most enterprises do not have clean data, so creating structured data is a priority. He added that the pace of AI adoption among enterprises will remain slower than the rate of evolution of AI models that are currently undergoing.

Meanwhile, U.S. equities declined in Tuesday morning’s trade. The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) was down 0.85% at the time of writing, while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) was down 1.84%.

The iShares U.S. Technology ETF (IYW) is up 51% over the past 12 months, while the Fidelity MSCI Information Technology Index ETF (FTEC) is up 49%. 

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