Manifesto 2026

A manifesto on AI, data centers, and connecting emerging global capital  /  2026

henri francois

The world is building the most valuable infrastructure in history. I connect the capital that funds it to the people who build it.

Aerial forest
The mission

To connect emerging global capital to the AI infrastructure buildout.

The vision

To enable the future of compute.

The values

Bold.
Global.
Relentless.

Contents

  1. The manifesto  01
  2. The thesis — heat is the ceiling02
  3. The market — compute is the new oil03
  4. The capital — where the money is going04
  5. The build — what I run05
  6. Contact  06
Misty forest

This is a working thesis on the decade's defining buildout: the data centers behind artificial intelligence, the power and heat that constrain them, and the emerging pools of global capital that will fund them. The infrastructure is being priced now. Most of the world has not caught up.

Forest

The thesis

  • Power is scarce
  • Heat is the ceiling
  • Water is the second permit
  • Capital is going global

The market

Compute is the new oil.

Artificial intelligence runs on physical infrastructure: land, power, cooling and steel. The demand is real and the constraint is real.

The scarce thing is not a megawatt. It is a megawatt you can actually deliver as dense, liquid-cooled, water-light capacity, now.

Global data-center power
0x
On track to more than double by 2030 as AI load compounds.
Committed AI infrastructure
$0T+
In data-center capex pledged across this decade.
The heat ceiling
0kW
Per rack, where air cooling quits and liquid begins.
Water, our way
0
Gallons. Modular data centers that run dry in every mode.
Sign to live
0wk
A 2 MW block, ~1,000 GPUs, on power that already exists.
Emerging capital pools
$0T+
GCC and Asian sovereign and family capital seeking hard assets.
Earth at night

The capital

  • The money is global
  • The best deals are private
  • Access beats a diploma

The build

Data center
Infrastructure

Borealis by Stilllife

Modular, liquid-cooled, zero-water AI data centers. Trucked in, live in weeks, on power that already exists.

stilllifelabs.com → Capital

Mallard Capital

Connecting sponsors to family offices and institutions across the GCC, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The desk → Compute
Compute

The new oil

Inference belongs near the load and the power, not in a distant mega-campus.

 Tools

Grunz

Private AI coding on open models. No account, nothing stored, a dollar to start.

grunzai.com → Energy
Writing

The thesis, in public

Published on AI data-center energy policy in POWER Magazine.

Read → Server room
Position

The bottleneck isn't power. It's heat.

Above forty kilowatts a rack, air quits. The operators who are liquid-ready this quarter are underpriced.

Read the memo →

Let's build.

henri@henrifrancois.comSend X / @sohohenri LinkedIn Stilllife Grunz