KKR & Blackstone On Powering the AI Era As Electric Demand Grows 7-10x Yearly [2026 Sohn Montreal]

At the 2026 Sohn Montreal Investment Conference, a panel of senior infrastructure investors took the stage to argue over a question that barely existed a few years ago: who pays for the enormous amount of power that artificial intelligence is about to consume, and how. Between them they manage around $350 billion, and they laid out where the trillions now chasing data centers, grids, and generation will come from.

The Powering Our Future panel, titled “Powering Our Future: how to meet tomorrow’s energy needs,” put about $350 billion of investing firepower on one stage. Patrick Charbonneau, senior vice president and chief investment officer at PSP Investments, moderated. The panelists were Brandon Freiman, head of North American infrastructure at KKR; Robert Horn, global head of infrastructure and asset-based credit at Blackstone; Olivier Renault, managing director for infrastructure and sustainable development in North America at La Caisse; and Andrew Alley, managing director and global head of infrastructure at PSP Investments.

A regime change in power demand

The discussion was a large change in electricity demand. After a decade when power demand grew at maybe 0.3% to 0.5% a year, the International Energy Agency now forecasts growth of about 3.5% through 2030. “Between good regulation and good growth, I think I’ll take growth any day,” Renault said, because growth solves problems that regulation cannot. The driver is electrification broadly and, above all, AI and data centers that want capacity bigger, faster, and firmer than before.