AT&T CEO: AI's power shortages could become America's "next economic social issue"

AT&T CEO told the Fortune Global Forum that AI power shortages could be America’s next economic social issue.

Transcript

00:00If $5 a gallon gasoline gets people elected or kicked out of office,

00:04two years from now, people are going to be looking at the power bill in their house.

00:09Because there's going to be a shortage of power, and

00:12people are going to be consuming it to push the boundaries on AI.

00:16And we're going to be asking ourselves, how did this happen?

00:19Why do we not have an approach here for critical infrastructure on power?

00:23It's going to be necessary to make this happen.

00:25I tell you, we're probably further along on getting sounder communications

00:29policy that allows for data to be transported to enable the AI revolution.

00:34But I worry about whether or not we're going to have enough power to make all

00:37that work moving forward,

00:39especially when you lay it on with what's required in these data centers.