India, Jan. 16 -- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently criticised the growing trend of technology companies building private data centres to support artificial intelligence. Speaking at the 2026 New York Times DealBook Summit, Bezos argued that firms investing in their own massive computing facilities are repeating a historical error from the early industrial era.

Bezos compared the current AI infrastructure rush to how factories operated at the start of the 20th century. Before public utility grids existed, businesses had to build and maintain their own power plants to run their machinery.

He recalled a visit to a 300-year-old brewery in Luxembourg that once housed its own electric generator. Once centralised power grids became available...