US Trade Leaders on Financing the AI and Data Centre Boom, and Supply Chain Reset
As AI-driven infrastructure investment accelerates across North America, a profound transformation in supply chain finance is underway. In December 2025, Global Trade Review (GTR) hosted a high-level roundtable in New York, bringing together heads of trade finance and supply chain finance from major US banks to discuss how trade and working capital finance are supporting data centres, critical minerals, and reconfigured supply chains.
AI Infrastructure Investment Creates New Financing Needs
The explosive growth of AI and data centre construction is reshaping global supply chains while creating unprecedented financing demands. According to industry forecasts, the global data centre market will exceed $500 billion by 2026, with AI-related infrastructure investment growing at over 30% annually.
“The AI and data centre construction boom is creating new opportunities in trade and working capital finance. What we’re facing is not just growth in scale, but fundamental transformation in financing models.” — Geoff Brady, Global Head of Trade and Supply Chain Finance, Bank of America
Geoff Brady, Global Head of Trade and Supply Chain Finance at Bank of America, noted in the roundtable discussion that while traditional trade finance has focused on short-term funding needs for goods movement, AI infrastructure financing presents long-term, complex, and cross-cycle characteristics.
Flexible Financing Tools Address Chip Shortage Challenges
Amid ongoing global chip shortages, ensuring stable semiconductor supply has become a priority for AI infrastructure development. Multiple bankers emphasized the critical role of flexible financing solutions in addressing this challenge during the roundtable.
“All of this is leading us to play a bigger role in providing traditional trade services, whether that’s letters of credit, supply chain finance or receivables finance. But we are also seeing a need for more flexible, newer solutions like inventory finance to secure those vital supplies and to have buffer stock that didn’t exist before, especially for chips.” — Jonathan Richman, Head of US Trade Finance and Working Capital Sales, Santander
Inventory finance holds particular importance in the chip supply chain. With long manufacturing cycles, high technical barriers, and volatile demand, both manufacturers and purchasers need to maintain safety stock.
Supply Chain Restructuring and Financial Innovation Amid Geopolitical Risks
Global supply chains are undergoing profound restructuring, driven by geopolitical risks, trade policy changes, and post-pandemic reflections. Bankers analyzed how supply chain shifts are changing financial service requirements.
“Re-shoring and ally-shoring have become a theme, as where you typically source your goods from may no longer be the most cost efficient. People are looking for those opportunities.” — Heather Crowley, Global Head of Trade and Working Capital Product, JP Morgan
Dyanne Carenza, Head of Trade Finance, Global Business Payments and Global Banking at Scotiabank, provided specific data: “We’ve seen a lot more volatility in the last nine to 10 months than there had been for a while. But we’ve seen shifts as a result – there are statistics showing that for the US, Mexico is now the largest trading partner, where it was China for many years.”
Bank Internal Coordination and Integrated Solutions
The complexity and scale of AI infrastructure projects require banks to provide more comprehensive and integrated financial services. Multiple bankers emphasized the importance of internal coordination and the need to shift from product-oriented to client-oriented approaches.
“This is what we are looking at: how to organise ourselves better internally, because we are going to see a lot of demand in power, energy and water.” — João Galvão, Head of Transaction Banking Corporate Sales, Americas, Standard Chartered
Antonio Federico, Head of Trade and Working Capital Sales, North America at Citi, elaborated on changing client needs: “That’s exactly what we are seeing. Clients are increasingly looking for partners who can support their full investment agenda over the next three to five years – not only short-term working capital, but also solutions across trade finance, liquidity management, capital markets and other verticals.”
Vertical Integration and Multi-Bank Financing Models
The trend toward vertical integration in supply chains is changing financing dynamics, as single banks often struggle to meet the financing needs of large vertically integrated projects. Bankers discussed the advantages and challenges of multi-bank financing models.
“The trend towards vertical integration in supply chains is becoming increasingly evident across various markets. What’s also becoming increasingly apparent is that financing these structures on a single-bank basis is quite ambitious. Adopting a more coordinated, multi-bank approach enables the industry to better meet the scale and complexity of these needs.” — João Galvão, Head of Transaction Banking Corporate Sales, Americas, Standard Chartered
According to industry estimates, global AI infrastructure investment could reach trillions of dollars over the next decade, with data centre construction accounting for a significant portion. Such massive funding requirements exceed the underwriting capacity of any single bank, requiring collaboration among multiple institutions.
Resilience First: The New Philosophy of Supply Chain Finance
In the context of AI and data centre prosperity, the core philosophy of supply chain finance is shifting from cost optimization to resilience building. Bankers repeatedly emphasized that in the current uncertain environment, supply chain reliability and elasticity are more important than pure cost efficiency.
“Our clients are willing to pay a little bit more, and perhaps lower their margins, because they want that trusted network and they want to solidify supplier relationships so they can source and provide the end product to their clients.” — Dyanne Carenza, Head of Trade Finance, Global Business Payments and Global Banking, Scotiabank
This resilience-first philosophy has profound implications for supply chain finance. Traditionally focused on reducing financing costs and optimizing cash flow, supply chain finance now places equal or greater importance on risk management, contingency planning, and recovery capabilities.
Conclusion: The Intelligent Future of Supply Chain Finance
The AI and data centre boom is propelling supply chain finance into a new developmental stage. Several important trends are evident from the roundtable discussion: financing needs are expanding from short-term transactions to long-term projects, financial instruments are evolving from standardized products to customized solutions, value propositions are shifting from cost optimization to risk management, and service models are transforming from single products to integrated solutions.
In the coming years, supply chain finance will continue to develop toward intelligence, digitization, and ecosystem integration. Technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and IoT will further enhance supply chain transparency and efficiency, enabling real-time financing and dynamic risk management.
This article is AI-assisted, based on in-depth analysis and interpretation of publicly available roundtable discussion content.
