Trump Adviser: US Can Meet AI's Energy Demand

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00:00We've got a lot to talk about. Let's start with this. The energy intensity of GDP growth

00:04feels like it's changing really, really quickly. How do we need to adapt to that?

00:08I think energy is a key driver of everything that we're going to be doing to drive this AI race.

00:13The White House put out its AI action plan in July of last year. It has three pillars.

00:17One is innovation, one is energy, and one is international. So a key pillar of the whole

00:22thing to work out is how we can get enough energy in the U.S. built out and how we can

00:26build these data centers quick enough to power all the great solutions that are going to come

00:29to our industries in the years ahead. You're tracking the numbers, looking at the charts.

00:32When you look at demand of supply, are constraints on the horizon or are they avoidable?

00:36We generally feel like the industry is finding a way to push through it. Obviously, the regulatory

00:42challenges associated with being able to permit and build this stuff is in everyone's mind.

00:47And I think you saw the president speak directly to this issue on a true social post last Monday

00:52where he said, look, if you want to build out all these data centers to these data hyperscalers,

00:57you have to find a way to make sure that the energy prices for American consumers don't go up. So

01:01the White House and President are very cognizant of the electricity issues, but we think we can meet

01:05that demand. A lot of people say that the United States is certainly ahead when it comes to chip

01:10technology, when it comes to some of these hyperscalers. China's ahead when it comes to how

01:14much energy it has available to use some of these solutions. How long do you think it would take for

01:19the U.S. to really catch up to where China is on the energy space?

01:23You know, I don't necessarily see it as us trying to catch up with energy capacity of China, but I

01:26think it's more do we have the amount of energy that we need to meet the demand in the U.S.?

01:31Up to now, I think we're able to kind of meet that demand and that capacity, and I think we're in a good

01:35place. So you don't think that there's any additional energy that needs to be provided in order to meet the

01:40build out that people expect coming down the right? Oh, obviously, we could always build more

01:43electricity and drive more. The whole agenda is around energy abundance, but I think we're pacing it and creating

01:49the right regulatory structure to meet the ultimate demand. Michael, there's a bill that hasn't even

01:53gotten out of committee that's getting a lot of attention when it comes to Congressman Brian

01:56Mass's bill, basically saying the U.S. needs to regulate, Congress needs to regulate chips the

02:00same way they do arm sales. Who should be regulating chip sales to, say, adversaries like China?

02:06I don't have any position on that bill. I haven't read it, but I will say currently Secretary

02:10Lutnik and the team at BIS is obviously on the hook by statute to work through our export control

02:14policies. When it comes to China, though, there has been a divide, I would say, within the White

02:19House or a robust debate, let's call it, about how do you deal with China? Do you sell them the chips

02:25to get the world addicted to American technology, or do you need to put stricter guardrails around it?

02:30Yeah, the policy right now is to restrict the top end chips from accessed by the PRC. So currently,

02:36the Blackwell, which are the best chips on the market, are not available to China. The Rubin that's

02:40going to come out later this year is also going to be export controlled. The change that many of you saw

02:45this week was a new rule that went out for the H200, which is one chip below the Blackwell.

02:52And those sales are allowed to China with some restrictions.

02:56Can we cut through narrative and facts? I'll describe the narrative of the last 12 months.

02:59It was around this week last year and the week after. There was a near obsession with deep sea.

03:04And the story coming out of that was that somehow China was far more efficient at developing these

03:09things compared to the U.S. and that it was also export compliant. And it was the export compliant

03:15piece of this that got my interest. As far as you're aware, are the developments you're seeing

03:20out of China export compliant or are they just getting these chips somehow, somewhere into the

03:25country? Yeah, I think we've come a long way since that since that moment with deep sea. And I think

03:29we've what's shown over the last year is continuing American dominance in leading frontier models.

03:34And it's something that I think all of our big companies are very proud of. The message that we came to bring here to

03:39Davos is all about the third pillar of the action plan. And that is, how do we share America's

03:44technology, our AI stack with the world? We want everyone to be building on American chips,

03:49fine tuning on American models and using American applications. And that's something that the

03:53president developed an executive order in July of last year. And we'll full steam ahead to make

03:57sure that anyone who wants to build on AI has access to our technology. On the flip side, there's a real

04:02question. And certainly we're here in Europe. So in Europe, they're thinking about regulating because

04:05that's what happens here about regulating and overseeing some of the AI that's coming out,

04:11particularly when it comes to sexualized images tied to grok in particular. How much is that on

04:16your radar screen? How much do you can you regulate while also allowing innovation to really gain steam?

04:22We think about that and take that issue very seriously. I'm a new father myself. And I think about

04:27that issue every day when I work through this, this policy debate, the president signed the take it down

04:31act, which was supported by the first lady last year. And it shows the seriousness, the bipartisan

04:35seriousness that we take these, these child imagery issues. And I think for us, I think it's

04:40something that we're continuing to track and make sure that that we're protecting all of America's

04:43youth. Do you know what the ultimate goal is other than just to win? I mean, people are talking about

04:47agentic AI, but they're also talking about the sort of supreme intelligence that will render us

04:52completely obsolete. I mean, does it matter to you? Is that something that the White House thinks about?

04:56To me, the way I, the way I think about winning the iRace is about adoption. And that's the biggest

05:01thing. You can have all these leaderboards, DeepSeq maybe somewhere on there. You have all of our great

05:06models somewhere on there. But who's at the top of the leaderboard doesn't necessarily mean that you've

05:10won. If no one is using that model, it doesn't really matter. So for us, we spend a lot of time

05:14thinking about how can you accelerate the adoption of these American models, not only in the U.S.,

05:19but around the world. That is why that third pillar of our export strategy is so key.

05:23When you look at a map around the world, are you planning on data centers in Greenland?

05:28I'll leave that to other people to think about.

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