The $7 Trillion AI Infrastructure Boom with Dean Nelson
Liftoff with Keith · 2026-05-26 · 12 min
Episode notes
Welcome back to Liftoff with Keith, the show where we sit down with the founders, operators, and industry leaders building the future in real time. Today’s guest is one of the most respected voices in digital infrastructure - Dean Nelson. Dean has spent nearly four decades at the center of the internet economy, helping build more than $10 billion in digital infrastructure across four continents for companies like Sun Microsystems, eBay, PayPal, and Uber. He’s also the founder of Infrastructure Masons, a global community uniting the builders of the digital age, now celebrating its 10-year anniversary. In this episode, we unpack the explosive growth happening across AI infrastructure and data centers - including staggering projections that the industry could spend $500 billion this year alone, scale toward $3 trillion by 2028, and potentially hit $7 trillion by 2030.
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