The tech industry could build data centers twice as fast without the supply constraints it faces, the company’s CEO said. nokia Speaking to CNBC, he emphasized that demand for AI continues, even as top executives discuss slowing the pace of development.
“I don’t think you could ever say that we’re overbuilding today, because the reality is that if we can build twice as fast, our customers can build twice as fast, so they probably will,” Justin Hotard said on CNBC’s The Tech Download podcast.
“So we can be confident that building AI is still in its infancy,” Hotard added.
Shortages of key memory chips and energy are among the supply constraints facing this sector.
Nokia, one of the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers, has pivoted to become a major player in the AI infrastructure space. The company sells the technology needed to connect racks of chips within a data center, as well as technology to interconnect data centers across different locations.
Nokia’s growing role as a “pick and drop” player in the AI boom appears to have attracted investors, with the stock up about 130% over the past year.
Nokia’s 1-year stock price chart.
But debate continues over whether the industry is building data centers too quickly and whether there is enough demand to sustain them.
Investments in building AI, from data centers to chips and related infrastructure, are expected to total $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032. This equates to an average of 3.63% of the U.S.’s annual gross product, according to a study published in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.
Companies are using debt, joint ventures, and other complex financing mechanisms to attract investment for these projects, which rely on sustained demand for AI services over the long term.
Concerns about the pace of AI development have been compounded by safety concerns sparked by warnings from human researchers about the technology’s existential threat, with CEO Dario Amodei calling for a slowdown in development of cutting-edge models.
This led to a sudden sell-off in AI stocks last month.
Finnish technology and communications company Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo, Finland, October 28, 2025.
Seppo Samri | Reuters
Hotard said the demand for AI is not just predicated on cutting-edge research institutions like Anthropic and OpenAI releasing new models.
“The reality is that we’re in the early stages of adoption today, and the power of these models is so great that there’s a lot of demand to just get them up and running,” Hotard said.
“Even if no new Frontier models are released in the next three years, we can probably make significant progress just by implementing the technology that exists today.”
