If Kevin O’Leary, 71, had to do it all over again at age 25, he said he would focus on two key areas of the technology industry in order to make it big in the industry.
of shark tank The star and O’Leary Ventures chairman said in a video this week that if he were in his 20s again, he would focus on artificial intelligence, the fastest-growing business today.
“I think the growth of AI will be exponential,” he says.
However, O’Leary said that in the vast industry of AI, he would focus on either helping small and medium-sized businesses implement AI tools or developing data centers.
O’Leary said the company will initially focus on helping companies with fewer than 500 employees adopt AI, rather than tackling large companies head-on. These 36 million small businesses account for just under half of U.S. GDP, according to the Small Business Administration, and while they may want to use AI, they may not be able to adapt as quickly as larger companies.
This opens up an opportunity to help companies on a voluntary basis set up systems to better manage their data and analyze it with AI, he said.
“There’s going to be a lot of people who don’t know how to use it and want to use it, but they’re willing to pay to solve that problem,” O’Leary said.
However, he carefully distinguished it from traditional consulting and viewed the opportunity as “implementation and execution.” O’Leary, who will be an executive fellow at Harvard University in 2025-2026, previously said: luck He warns MBA students against pursuing consulting, describing the career as a “gentle drift into mediocrity.”
AI real estate
O’Leary’s second opportunity, data center development, may require more money and a little more effort, but it’s just as ripe for opportunity.
“The biggest pain point in AI is the data center,” O’Leary says. “That’s real estate development.”
He pointed out that there is a mismatch today when it comes to demand and supply of AI infrastructure. Only about 5 gigawatts of data center capacity is currently under construction, but there is demand for much more.
“The demand is insatiable,” he says.
Mr. O’Leary applied his real estate experience to his data center development business. He has already backed the development of a massive $70 billion data center industrial park that could provide 7.5 gigawatts of computing power to the Canadian province of Alberta, but the project has come under scrutiny over schedule delays.
Data may be O’Leary’s friend when it comes to data centers. Goldman Sachs Research predicts that data center power demand will jump 165% by the end of the decade due to the increased use of AI.
Companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google are pouring billions of dollars into data centers with no end in sight, with Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer Lisa Charette saying in a September note that hyperscalers’ capital spending on data centers and related items is nearly $400 billion a year.
For O’Leary, there are important similarities between both opportunities in AI. While they may not be the most glamorous areas of AI, both opportunities are involved in building the foundations necessary for the future AI economy to function.
Helping small businesses implement AI tools or securing land for a data center facility may not be thrilling. shark tank O’Leary believes either opportunity could make a 25-year-old very rich.
