BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warned that any halt to the United States' massive data center construction boom could tip the country into a recession, while separately sounding the alarm over a national debt that has climbed to $40 trillion.

Speaking in a CNBC interview on Wednesday, the chief executive of the world's largest asset manager said "a moratorium of some sort in this country" would put the U.S. into a recession, commonly defined as two straight quarters of shrinking economic output. Fink was referring to a potential push to stop data center buildouts across the U.S. over concerns that they harm the environment. Data centers are the huge buildings packed with computers that power artificial intelligence (AI).

"So much of our economy is based on the buildout of this capex," Fink said, using shorthand for capital expenditures — the long-term corporate spending on facilities and equipment.

Public opinion sours as Fink pushes back

Public opinion on data centers is souring. A Pew Research Center survey found that at least 49% of Americans say data centers are mostly bad for the environment, home energy costs and quality of life for those living near them.

Fink pushed back on that view, saying most of the fears surrounding data center buildouts are "misinformation" and adding, "Data centers are not the problem." He also pointed to the facilities' role in job creation, noting demand for construction workers, energy infrastructure and AI compute hardware.

Companies are pouring so much money into data centers that power AI that any attempt to slow the buildout could hurt the broader U.S. economy, not just the stock market. Moody's estimates planned capital spending on U.S. data centers at $700 billion this year, rising to between $2.4 trillion and $2.48 trillion through 2030, despite growing public concern about environmental and community effects. Globally, spending is expected to reach $7 trillion by the end of the decade.

Any attempt to stifle that spending could have wide-ranging effects. The U.S. economy is already stressed on several fronts, including sticky inflation and rising bond yields, which feed into borrowing costs across the economy.

Recession risk extends to crypto

A recession would matter for crypto traders too, since it typically reduces investors' appetite for risky assets. Bitcoin proponents hail it as a haven, but the cryptocurrency has historically faced selling pressure during broad-based risk aversion. At press time, bitcoin traded near $81,200, down 0.8% since midnight UTC.

BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is the world's largest publicly listed bitcoin fund, with cumulative net inflows of $65.62 billion since its debut in January 2024, according to SoSoValue.

$40 trillion debt

Fink also pointed to government borrowing, a second structural concern running alongside the corporate capex boom he defended. "U.S. deficits are starting to have a serious impact," he said, noting that the national debt has grown from $8 trillion in 2000 to $40 trillion in 2026.

"We grew $32 trillion in 26 years," Fink said. "That's a massive impact on demand for credit. The government is demanding more and more credit, and bond auctions are getting larger and larger."

Bond auctions are the mechanism through which the federal government borrows from investors, and their growing size tracks the debt expansion Fink described.

His answer is private money. "We need to unlock private capital to grow the U.S. economy by 3%," he said.

Growing government debt is widely seen as bullish for scarce assets like gold and bitcoin.

BlackRock itself reported solid third-quarter results. Net inflows — new money from clients — came to $205 billion, and revenue rose 19%, even as organic asset growth slowed slightly over the last 12 months. Adjusted earnings per share rose 38% from a year earlier, and the operating margin climbed to 47.8%.

This article was originally published by CoinDesk.