• Bank of America announced a $250 billion, 18-month initiative to invest in American infrastructure.
• JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have both launched decade-long, $1.5 trillion similar efforts.
• The announcements are backlit by AI financing needs and a political focus on American manufacturing.

Wall Street is seeing green in red, white, and blue.

Bank of America became the latest bank to announce an investment in American infrastructure on Wednesday. The firm said it will deploy $250 billion over 18 months through its Critical Infrastructure Finance Initiative, starting at the beginning of this year and ending on July 4, 2027.

Peers have launched similar initiatives over the past year, together committing trillions of dollars to boosting American dominance. JPMorgan inaugurated the trend when it announced its $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative in October, and Morgan Stanley announced its own $1.5 trillion US Innovation Infrastructure Initiative on Monday.

While the efforts differ slightly in scale and focus, each is at least partially directed at the AI buildout. This year alone, there will be about $581 billion worth of AI-related investment in the US, Goldman Sachs economists said in a report.

“This is an unprecedented time for bankers,” said Karen Fang, Bank of America’s global head of infrastructure and sustainable finance and co-head of global capital solutions. “I’ve been financing infrastructure for 16, 17 years. I’ve never seen this much capital that’s required in such a short period of time and across the economy, across the sectors.”

President Donald Trump has focused on strengthening America’s manufacturing capabilities and, at times, has exerted pressure on companies to reshore operations. His administration has also taken stakes in multiple private companies.

Bank of America’s effort is tied to the country’s 250th anniversary, hence the $250 billion commitment. It will focus on digital infrastructure, like data centers and semiconductors; energy and power infrastructure; and core infrastructure, like transportation and critical minerals. Fang said the 18-month timeline helps “demonstrate our sense of urgency,” and sees energy and power as the most critical area to focus on, given the power demands of AI.

While much of the capital will come from the private sector, Fang said most projects need government and community buy-in, as when Bank of America financed a gigawatt data center for Oracle and OpenAI in Michigan earlier this year.

“Without the policy support, without the permitting, without the approval of local governments and, in certain cases, federal government, you can’t proceed on these large-scale projects,” she said.

Fang estimated that a couple of hundred people across her teams are dedicated to the initiative, but said it’s a firm-wide effort. For the “right talent” — infrastructure finance experts, in this case — her “door is always open.”

Collaboration needed

JPMorgan’s Security and Resiliency team, by comparison, had between 25 and 30 people as of June, hired both from within and outside the bank.

Through the decadelong plan, JPMorgan plans to direct $1.5 trillion toward industries it sees as strategically important to the US and its trading partners: defense and aerospace, frontier technologies, energy technology, and supply chains and advanced manufacturing. Since the launch, the team has financed approximately $200 billion, and the initiative’s investment group has committed more than $4 billion in equity.

Compared to traditional investment banking deals, the group’s transactions have “a lot more complexity,” Vasudha Saxena, who runs the group’s strategy, previously told Business Insider. It is, she said, some of the most challenging work she’s done in her 25-year career, as some of the deals are public-private partnerships with as many as eight stakeholders.

Morgan Stanley’s US Innovation Infrastructure Initiative will also facilitate some $1.5 trillion of capital raising, financing, and advisory over the next decade, the firm said in a press release. Co-president Dan Simkowitz tied the announcement to the country’s 250th anniversary in the release.

Its three areas of focus include helping clients build technologies and businesses in strategic industries; digital, physical, and energy infrastructure; and providing capital markets, advisory, and investment services to entrepreneurs and companies.

As much as firms are touting the initiatives as investments in America, they also serve their bottom lines — Fang said every deal will be “on market terms.”

Similarly, Mark Marengo of JPMorgan’s team previously told Business Insider that the idea of SRI is “not to make bad loans or make bad investments. It is meant to meet our commercial returns.”

Though the three banks battle for deals and market share, Fang said the daunting task of strengthening the country’s infrastructure requires collaboration.

“We want more announcements focused on infrastructure,” she said. “I think it’s great.”