The boom's biggest investor fell in the boom's own year
Blackstone is the largest investor in data centers: roughly $70 billion of them on its books and a development pipeline above $100 billion. It led a $7.5 billion debt financing for CoreWeave and bought AirTrunk for $16 billion. Yet in 2026, with AI infrastructure spending in full swing, the stock is down 19.9%. When the capital that funds a boom trades against that boom, its clock must be set somewhere else. This piece walks through the returns of the banks, the asset managers and Berkshire to show where that clock sits: rates and fund flows.
2022: one variable moved the whole layer
In 2022, the year rates shot up, the capital layer moved as one, with no reference to the AI chain. Blackstone -40%, Bank of America -23.8%, BlackRock -20.4%, JPMorgan -12.6%. The single exception was Berkshire Hathaway at +3.3%, sheltered by its T-bill hoard. Whatever these firms held and whomever they lent to, one variable pressed the entire layer down together. That is what a clock looks like.
Banks are the clock's beneficiaries
When the same clock turned favorable, banks earned the most. JPMorgan returned +30.6% in 2023, +44.3% in 2024 and +37.3% in 2025, three straight years of outsized gains. The engine was the deposit spread. Net interest income reached $95.4 billion in FY2025 (+3%) on $2.56 trillion of deposits, and net income hit a record $57 billion. Guidance for 2026 net interest income is about $103 billion, so the clock is still running. JPMorgan is also among the largest arrangers of data center debt, co-arranging a $22 billion loan for Vantage, but what drove the stock was the deposit spread, not the loan book.
Bank of America is the same beta on a delay. Net interest income is 53% of revenue, so its rate sensitivity is even higher. But the bond book built in the zero-rate years (held-to-maturity securities around $568 billion) carried paper losses that held it to +4.8% in 2023, far behind JPMorgan's +30.6%. Only once that burden was digested did it catch up, with +33.9% in 2024 and +28.0% in 2025.
Asset managers fund the boom and go unpaid
The paradox is sharpest among the asset managers. BlackRock formed AIP with Microsoft, NVIDIA and MGX, a vehicle with $30 billion of equity and up to $100 billion of potential capital for AI data centers, then acquired Aligned Data Centers for $40 billion. The stock returned +6.6% in 2025 and sits at -5.2% in 2026. With 76% of revenue tied to AUM-linked fees, the clock belongs to asset prices and flows: AUM reached a record $14.04 trillion and the stock still lagged. Brookfield signed a 10.5GW renewable energy framework with Microsoft and is -9.3% in 2026. Put Blackstone's -19.9% beside these and the layer's paradox reads plainly: the managers with the largest AI exposure have fallen the furthest.
Berkshire chose the rate clock outright
Berkshire Hathaway made the choice explicit. Cash and short-term Treasuries reached a record $397.4 billion as of March 31, 2026, collecting the bill rate while it waits. The only AI chip it ever touched, TSMC, was liquidated within two quarters across 2022 and 2023. Apple was cut by two-thirds in 2024, and Amazon and Bank of America were fully exited by the first quarter of 2026. The one exception is Alphabet, a new position built up to $16.6 billion. The 2026 return of +0.3% is watchfulness itself, priced.
A footnote on the payment networks
One footnote: Visa at +0.8% and Mastercard at -6.6% in 2026 run on the consumer spending clock, a separate layer outside the scope of this piece.
Verification
The returns of the capital layer point at one clock. The 2022 rate shock pressed everyone down except Berkshire (+3.3%). When higher rates fattened deposit spreads in 2023 to 2025, the banks collected (JPMorgan +30.6%, +44.3%, +37.3%). And the managers that went deepest into AI data centers all fell in 2026 (Blackstone -19.9%, Brookfield -9.3%, BlackRock -5.2%). For those who sell into the boom, AI is revenue; for those who deploy it, a cost; for those who fund it, the ticket is rates. There is one exception outside the chain that switched clocks. The companies that turned the assets they already owned into AI infrastructure are covered in Turning assets changes the clock.