The structure of the AI cloud market MARKET General Special (public/regulated) Figure 4 € AI compute AI compute€ Hyperscalers € AI compute Neoclouds € GPUs GPU manufacturers € Power, fibre Power, fibre€€ Data centre providers Credit € Private credit providers Source: Authors, based on Arun 2025. Note that sometimes, hyperscalers rely on financial intermediaries for the financing of their data centers. In addition, a key point is that­the market does not exist as an undifferentiated‘arms-length’ market but rather is segmented into already-existing distribution networks. These create structural advantages for hyperscalers through economies of scale and integration benefits. 1.2 Geographies of computation: where are the data centres? The global geography of traditional data centres is deter­mined mainly by physical factors, such as the availability of power and the presence of high-speed data intercon­nections. 2 The global hotspot for data centres is Northern ­Virginia, where the historical MAE-East interconnection created a path dependency thanks to the availability of interconnects(Zografos 2025). Moreover, data centre areas benefit from network effects, where the presence of other connections guarantees the lowest possible latency, which entrenches existing path dependencies. This has historically created concentrated data centre hubs. 2  The International Energy Agency hosts a useful dashboard to see connections between energy and AI. see https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/energy-and-ai-ob­servatory?tab=Energy+for+AI. Introduction 9