In questa puntata di The Big Question, il CEO di Barclays Europe, Francesco Ceccato, si unisce alla redattrice di economia di Euronews, Angela Barnes, al World Economic Forum di Davos, in Svizzera.
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00:00No single company or government can finance all the AI infrastructure or energy needs.
00:05Our capital markets in Europe are fragmented.
00:07Getting to cleaner energy is a dial and not a switch.
00:17Hello, I'm Angela Barnes and welcome to this episode of The Big Question from Davos in Switzerland.
00:23Well, on The Big Question we speak to some of the most influential people in the world of business.
00:29And today I'm joined by Francesco Ducato, the CEO of Barclays Europe.
00:35Francesco, it's a pleasure to have you on the show.
00:38Pleasure to be here with you.
00:39Thank you very much. So, what a lot to talk about.
00:42But first of all, from your conversations that you've been having and what you've been seeing,
00:47what are the most significant economic trends or risks this year
00:52and how do you see them impacting the European financial sector?
00:57So, the theme this year at Davos is collaboration in a digital age.
01:02And clearly what that aims to get behind is how can we harness the power of technology
01:09to ultimately reignite growth without ultimately having an inflationary problem that comes back.
01:16And AI, in our view, is going to be something that we need to embrace,
01:22but it comes with a lot of different follow-on components, including needing a lot of energy.
01:30And so energy provision and energy security is an important theme here as well.
01:42I want to talk to you about Barclays AI report, which has just been released.
01:46Can you just summarize for me some of the key findings in that report?
01:51Yes. So, I think it's important to tie it together with the report that we published roughly this time last year,
01:59which was about the impact that AI can have to boost productivity,
02:05in particular support aging populations who are perhaps becoming less productive
02:10and to aid them in ultimately creating better economic outcomes.
02:15This year what we're focused on is how do you actually think about the energy needs of the AI investment
02:22that we're going to have to make, because no single company or government can finance all the AI infrastructure or energy needs.
02:29We need to see a large investment in energy to support the AI infrastructure.
02:34Why is that? Because every application of AI requires lots of computing power.
02:42The latest colossus AI supercomputer that Elon Musk is investing in has 200,000 GPUs.
02:49That requires a huge amount of energy.
02:52And we are seeing more and more GPUs added as the use cases in the applications of AI
02:59become more and more sophisticated and wide ranging.
03:03And what the report says is that energy demands are going to go up massively between now and 2030
03:10and we see the potential for real infrastructure investment needed.
03:16I mean, just to give you one metric, the IEA is projecting that 1,000 terawatts hour are going to be needed
03:26for all the data centers in the world.
03:29And of course it's data centers that can perform these AI calculations.
03:34And therefore, you know, our view is that we need to understand that energy infrastructure is critical to supporting the AI,
03:43which, tying it back to last year's report, is critical to productivity.
03:48Francesco, there is a lot to take in there, but do you think Europe is prepared for that?
03:52Or is it a case of it's now getting prepared for the enormity of what's needed to invest in this AI infrastructure?
04:00I think it's important that we prepare for it.
04:04AI is one way, one technology that can help us and resolve some of our problems.
04:10But it needs investment and it can't all be coming from governments because they are fiscally constrained in many cases.
04:18It can come from the capital markets, but our capital markets in Europe are fragmented
04:24and therefore we need to reform them and we need to do that quickly.
04:27And this is something that President von der Leyen talked about.
04:30It needs to happen with less red tape and with more, if you like,
04:35straight-through processing of the type of project that can bring real economic advantage.
04:40I just wanted to ask you about sustainability and digital transformation.
04:44How do you envision these influencing Barclay's strategy for Europe
04:49when it comes to sustainability and digital transformation?
04:53So I think with sustainability our strategy revolves around the transition
04:59and what's important is to recognize that getting to cleaner energy is a dial and not a switch.
05:07And that means that we have to keep supporting our clients who are wanting to transition
05:12and we can support them with advice, with financing and with facilitation of financing through the capital markets.
05:19So that's the first piece.
05:20The second piece is to know that from our perspective
05:24our target of one trillion of sustainable and transition finance by 2030
05:30is still something that we as Barclay's Europe want to continue to contribute very meaningfully to
05:36and that's what we have been doing.
05:38And the third component of our strategy is to continue to support companies at the early stage
05:45in the clean tech business that can continue to drive technological change
05:51that can help the energy transition itself.
05:54Those would include, for example, our investment into a company that does solar energy
06:00but not through typical solar cells but through solar tubes.
06:04We are invested in an insulation company, we are invested in a green hydrogen company
06:09and these are all examples of that specific strategy to invest the group's balance sheet
06:15to ultimately support the transition.
06:18And Francesco, more widely, what role do you see European banks playing
06:23in addressing global challenges like climate change and digital innovation?
06:27Just on the climate change side, many banks have analogous strategies to ours
06:32so I think we've covered that to some extent.
06:35With digital innovation and digitalization I think it's important to realize
06:39that in Europe our digital infrastructure needs modernization.
06:43Once it's been modernized to really be contributing to the economy
06:48it needs power, it needs energy and we'll come to that in a moment
06:52but again our objective here is to be a supportive partner
06:57for not just companies but also governments or indeed individuals
07:03to have the right advice to be able to navigate these changes
07:07and to be able to draw the financing.
07:09It may be from our balance sheet, it may be from the capital markets,
07:12we can facilitate that and always to give the best advice we can.
07:16Brilliant. Francesco, thank you very much for all of your insights.
07:19It's great to have you on The Big Question
07:21and thank you very much all for watching this episode of the show from Davos in Switzerland.
07:27Don't forget you can catch all our shows on the Euronews YouTube channel
07:30and you can also go to the Euronews website for business section
07:34and catch all our Big Question episodes there.
07:37Thank you very much.