AI Infrastructure Is Scaling Fast. Decision-Making Isn’t

InnovationAI Infrastructure Is Scaling Fast. Decision-Making Isn’tByMark Morgan,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)May 11, 2026, 06:00am EDTMark Morgan is President of Commercial Operations at Kinaxis, helping global enterprises transform supply chains with AI. getty​The AI gold rush is no longer a metaphor. Global AI spending is projected to reach $2.5 trillion in 2026, growing rapidly year over year, as hyperscalers pour hundreds of billions into data centers and compute capacity.Capital is flowing. Campuses are rising. Compute capacity is scaling at historic speed.​​ But beneath the headlines lies a harder operational truth:AI infrastructure is scaling faster than enterprise decision-making. And that gap is becoming the real bottleneck.The New Industrial Revolution Runs On ConstraintsAI data center expansion is the industrial revolution of our era. Steel and rail have been replaced by silicon and fiber—but the constraints are just as real.The scale alone is staggering. North America is expected to require approximately 92 gigawatts of additional power capacity over the next five years to support AI data centers. Energy is no longer a background utility; it is a gating factor.Supply chains are tightening in unexpected ways. Projections suggest that data centers could consume up to 70% of global memory chip production by 2026, creating ripple effects across industries, from consumer electronics to automotive and medical devices.Against this backdrop:• Energy grids are under strain• Semiconductor supply remains concentrated and volatile• Lead times for critical components stretch months if (!window.cnxel) { window.cnxel = {}; window.cnxel.cmd = []; var iframe = document.createElement('iframe'); iframe.style.display = 'none'; iframe.onload = function() { var iframeDoc = iframe.contentWindow.document; var scri...