Ford is laying off 1,600 workers at its Kentucky facility as the automaker makes a strategic shift away from EV battery manufacturing toward data center storage operations. The move signals a broader industry recalibration: traditional manufacturers are recognizing the massive infrastructure demand driving the digital economy. Data centers have become critical infrastructure assets, especially as blockchain nodes, AI compute capacity, and decentralized networks expand globally. This pivot mirrors a larger trend—companies are repositioning capital from consumer hardware toward the backend systems that power next-gen technologies. Whether it's crypto infrastructure, on-chain scaling, or enterprise data storage, the infrastructure layer is where the real buildout is happening right now. Ford's shift from batteries to data centers is less about abandoning electrification and more about chasing where the actual growth margins are in the digital era.