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Join us as we gather around the hedge,
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where we dig into technology, business, and culture
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with the finest minds in computer networking.
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Well, hello, Ned. First time on The Hedge.
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Where are you physically?
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Physically, I am in my office in a
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basement
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in Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Just outside
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of Philly. Okay. Yeah. You may not know
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this, but I was in the 4 30
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8th comm group, which is stationed well, at
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the time,
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was stationed at Maguire Air Force Base, which
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is in Cherry Hill. So Mhmm. We used
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to drive to Philly.
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If we wanted to go to the big
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city, we drove to Philly. That's what we
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did.
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So I'm pretty familiar with that area, actually.
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Believe it or not, I was there
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for 8 seven and a half years, 8
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years, something like that. Okay. So cool. Yeah.
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Alright.
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And we are joined by 1
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I'm gonna mess your last name up, Juan.
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It's better if you just say it. Antonio.
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Okay.
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Awesome. Thank you for having me, Russ. Yeah.
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So where are you, Juan? What physically are
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you located?
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I am in the in the DC area,
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specifically in Arlington, Virginia.
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Okay.
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Arlington. Yes. I've been there a lot too.
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Do you know where the, old Freddie Mae
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Freddie Mac Fannie Mae Freddie Mac building is?
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It's actually in Reston. It's not in Arlington.
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So it's the other side of town. But
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when I worked for AS not for ASM.
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When I worked for, VeriSign, that's their headquarters
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is in Reston. So I was in Reston,
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I don't know, every couple of weeks for
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a long time.
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So alright. So we're talking about data center
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regulations and I think we kick this off,
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from an article you wrote. Right, Juan?
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Yes. From yeah. About data center regulations and
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the importance of data center regulations.
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And I think the the main thrust is
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is that we're I'll just start by saying,
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I think what our main thrust is is
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that
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we are at the point where localities
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are kind of regulating to the point where
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we can't build new data centers
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for power, for
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environmental reasons, whatever it is. So maybe we
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start there and, like, talk a little bit
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about the regulatory environment one, and, like, what's
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going on, what you've noticed,
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what you've seen, stuff like that.
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Yeah, Rose. I think you you you nailed
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the the nail on the head right there.
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It's that
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data centers are,
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after what I think it was a high
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noon period,
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where
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every state want to have a data center.
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As you mentioned, Reston, for example, one of
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the data center capitals of the country.
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You know, there's been a lot of influx,
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and and everyone was looking at them with,
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rose tinted glasses, kinda.
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Now the tide has turned
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on them. And and when I was when
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I was thinking about this, the best way
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to exemplify it is they are kind of
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fighting a battle on 3 fronts. 3 different
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groups of people,
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are are pushing for for data center regulation
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some way or another.
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On one side, you have, for example, the
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anti tech movement,
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that which is rather big in congress. You
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know, people are big and angry at big
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tech for whatever reason,
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and they be just been trying to do,
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like, a death by a 1,000 cuts. The
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Luddites.
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Yes.
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Luddites.
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Other people are, like, are are just concerned
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about free speech, for example. So that's the
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more than conservative side. Others are concerned about
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keeping safe
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like, children's safety online. That things that platforms
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have failed children.
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And and they just wanna give a punch
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of big tech. And they sometimes they think
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it's like, okay. Let's go against data centers,
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because that's, integral part of their operation.
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If you heard, like,
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what are the cores of the business model
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or, like, their basic infrastructure,
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you get ahead at them, and then you
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can hit their profitability.
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Yeah. That's that's on one side.
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On the other side, I would say you
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have other group 2 groups that I would
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say a bit little bit related, but I
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don't wanna lump them together. It's the AI
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degrowth. There's a the actual issue. Like, people
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are saying AI is going too fast,
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and we slow them down. And AI, of
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course, relies a lot of data centers. AI
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needs data, and and data centers are, like,
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the back backbone of that. And, therefore,
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if you regulate them away,
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AI go slower,
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and and and and their objective
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is fulfilled.
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And then you'd have this economic group
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slash environmentalist
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group of, like, what I would call them
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the degrowthers,
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people that think that the economy
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growing is actually at this point harmful for
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the environment, harmful for the world because we're
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consuming too much. We're tossing away too much.
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We're creating waste. We're consuming a lot of
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energy.
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And and data centers are part of that,
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especially in an era of the digital economy
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that ecommerce
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has just ramped up consumption, ramped up production
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to these unhealthy levels.
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So if
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you cause that degrowth, you slow down the
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economy,
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the environment is gonna benefit, and and we
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as humans are gonna benefit.
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So once again, we go against this resource
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hungry,
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we we must like, that's, like, for sake
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of transparency. Like, we say, like, data centers
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are resource hungry,
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installations. They they eat a lot of energy.
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They need a lot of air to operate.
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They do a lot of a lot of
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computing powers going on going on there, and
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that needs energy.
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So
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you gotta go against one of the biggest
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consumers in the energy market,
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according to to these people. It's like that's
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the way you you cause that degrowth. You
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take the biggest
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demand for power out by taking out data
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centers.
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That's that's interesting. So what kinds
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of regulation
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are these people pushing?
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They're pushing, obviously, environmental, but, like, can you
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describe some of the techniques,
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that they're that they're going after?
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Yeah. So,
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they are wielding a broad portfolio of regulations,
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and and and it's funny sometimes how they
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can get looked in some things. So one
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of those, it's permitting
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and and zoning laws,
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especially so in in the in the piece
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I I mentioned, I think it let me
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have over here. Arizona, Illinois, and Arkansas,
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have passed new new regulations in in in
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about the zoning and permitting,
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regimes that essentially ban
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the construction of more data center buildings.
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So they're they're saying, you know, they're affecting
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zoning. They're they're they're affecting the grid, essential
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services. Therefore,
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we ban,
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the construction of this infrastructure of these buildings.
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Other, like, other in this more, like, the
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environmental
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approach,
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they are regulating
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backup generators.
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So a lot of them are saying that
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the backup generators that this data centers must
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have have to be clean energy. Like, they
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they cannot have fossil fuels
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and and and and, essentially, just
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just, like, handicapping
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the capacity of this of this generators.
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And others,
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what are the what what is what's happening,
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it's that
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they either wanna
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completely back backtrack
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or suspend,
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previous
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contracts that this data center has had with
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the utility companies in the states.
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That, for example, what would happen is some
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a lot of the times is the data
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center companies
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broker a deal with the state, and and
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going back to that era of, like, the
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rosy tinting classes,
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municipalities oftentimes offers discounted
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energy rates for the data centers to come
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in. So a lot of these municipalities
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are
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backtracking on those contracts or suspending those contracts
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and, and giving them full price again. But
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like, if you do that
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before the contract ended, they just app talking
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about a huge,
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price spike that was completely unforeseeable for this
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company. So all of a sudden their business
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operation is completely upended and you have an
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operational costs
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multiply by fact, multiple factors. So, like, I
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I wanna wanna show a specific number, but
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imagine triple or even more. Yeah. Because it's
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gonna depend on locality, what that is.
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And and what about noise? I know that
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data centers are louder than people think they
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are.
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I'm just very curious.
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Especially when you're on the inside of the
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data center.
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When when I did the research, that didn't
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really pop up as in the noise,
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like, noise regulations have been prepping up? But
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I know it's part of the conversation. And
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there's been a lot of articles.
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The Washington Post has done a couple specials
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on on on this and data centers and
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then how they're gonna play into local geopolitics.
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And
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noise is a complaint, but so far, as
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far as I've I've researched, I haven't found,
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like, noise regulations being wielded against them.
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Do you see a a broad impact on
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the local community
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if a data center is actually built? Because
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a lot of things you were talking about
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was more esoteric
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in terms of power
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and potential environmental problems, but the actual local
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community, if I if someone builds a data
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center in my backyard,
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how would, how would that negatively impact me
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or maybe positively help me out?
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Yeah, that's, that's a good question. And I
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think,
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one of the main problems and to bring
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that esoteric
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question to to the ground, and it's a
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lot of communities are potentially facing,
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higher electricity rates because of this. Because,
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the grid's strained, and maybe we're not producing
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enough energy in certain localities.
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And because of the power spike that has
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happened due to these data centers,
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a lot of people are saying that because
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it
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there's not, like, a crust subsidy going on,
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it is the residents of a neighborhood who
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might have to pay higher electricity rates.
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And and that's where some people are showing
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concerns aside from, like, what we talked about,
276
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for example, noise. Mhmm. On the other side
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and this was more of the logic when
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people when municipalities and localities wanted to bring
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data centers in. We're talking about property tax,
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00:10:25,514 --> 00:10:27,934
income and and revenue for for municipalities.
281
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We're talking about economic activity. You you have
282
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more jobs coming coming in,
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and sometimes it has kind of a ripple
284
00:10:35,514 --> 00:10:37,915
effect. So you you see in in the
285
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rest of the area right over here
286
00:10:39,970 --> 00:10:42,529
in in Virginia, like, you have this tech
287
00:10:42,529 --> 00:10:44,049
cluster. Like, the rest of the area has
288
00:10:44,049 --> 00:10:46,929
become this huge tech cluster because sometimes it's
289
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the companies wanna be close to the data
290
00:10:48,690 --> 00:10:51,429
centers. Sometimes there's there's some cluster,
291
00:10:52,475 --> 00:10:54,634
efficiencies that come with that. So you have
292
00:10:54,634 --> 00:10:56,955
other types of jobs. You have wealthy people
293
00:10:56,955 --> 00:10:59,295
coming in, that means income tax going up,
294
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and and and it creates a virtuous cycle.
295
00:11:02,075 --> 00:11:04,335
So there's definitely pros and cons to having,
296
00:11:05,035 --> 00:11:06,815
data centers in your in your neighborhood.
297
00:11:07,500 --> 00:11:09,740
I I would think another pro that probably
298
00:11:09,740 --> 00:11:11,600
nobody ever talks about is increased
299
00:11:12,059 --> 00:11:13,040
network connectivity.
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00:11:13,740 --> 00:11:16,139
You throw a data center someplace, and it's
301
00:11:16,139 --> 00:11:18,460
gotta have a lot of optical power, you
302
00:11:18,460 --> 00:11:20,625
know, a lot of optical stuff coming in.
303
00:11:20,865 --> 00:11:23,264
So therefore, any of your local CEOs that
304
00:11:23,264 --> 00:11:24,325
service your community
305
00:11:24,784 --> 00:11:26,865
have to have better connectivity. So you're gonna
306
00:11:26,865 --> 00:11:27,845
get better Internet
307
00:11:28,225 --> 00:11:30,225
even if, like, even if you're still buying
308
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a 100 gig from your local provider,
309
00:11:32,465 --> 00:11:33,605
it's still better
310
00:11:33,970 --> 00:11:36,450
because you're closer to a point where a
311
00:11:36,450 --> 00:11:38,210
lot of data is coming in and out.
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Is that something that's ever brought up, or
313
00:11:40,610 --> 00:11:42,529
is that just, like, nobody really thinks about
314
00:11:42,529 --> 00:11:43,029
it?
315
00:11:43,570 --> 00:11:45,250
As far as as I found it, as
316
00:11:45,250 --> 00:11:47,409
I like, as as long as I've read
317
00:11:47,409 --> 00:11:49,490
about it, I haven't. I think this is
318
00:11:49,490 --> 00:11:51,384
the value of this type of areas where
319
00:11:51,384 --> 00:11:53,324
they have a net network engineer that can
320
00:11:53,704 --> 00:11:54,764
shed light on the
321
00:11:55,784 --> 00:11:56,684
on on the benefits.
322
00:11:58,105 --> 00:12:00,184
Yeah. So it's just interesting to me because
323
00:12:00,184 --> 00:12:00,904
I know that's,
324
00:12:01,704 --> 00:12:03,669
that's that's a thing. Like, you know, I
325
00:12:03,669 --> 00:12:05,029
know that even if you have a 100
326
00:12:05,029 --> 00:12:07,269
gig out way out in a remote location
327
00:12:07,269 --> 00:12:08,730
or a country house,
328
00:12:09,429 --> 00:12:11,690
you're just not, you know, the the infrastructure
329
00:12:12,230 --> 00:12:14,389
and the connectivity, not just the infrastructure in
330
00:12:14,389 --> 00:12:17,049
terms of amount of bandwidth, but also
331
00:12:17,665 --> 00:12:20,384
resilience, like, you only have one provider, one
332
00:12:20,384 --> 00:12:20,884
upstream
333
00:12:21,504 --> 00:12:23,264
going out. Whereas, if you have a data
334
00:12:23,264 --> 00:12:25,024
center, like, you know, if Amazon or Google
335
00:12:25,024 --> 00:12:26,545
or somebody comes out and puts a data
336
00:12:26,545 --> 00:12:29,605
center, they're gonna have at least 3 upstreams
337
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:32,039
that they're gonna bring in. And they're all
338
00:12:32,039 --> 00:12:34,059
gonna be high high speed upstreams.
339
00:12:34,519 --> 00:12:36,940
And so that's that's something I would think
340
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:38,679
that if I were building a data center,
341
00:12:38,679 --> 00:12:40,700
it'd be one of my pushbacks. It's like,
342
00:12:40,840 --> 00:12:42,600
yeah, but, you know, we're we're giving you
343
00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:45,205
better Internet here. So there are trade offs.
344
00:12:45,205 --> 00:12:46,504
It's not all one way.
345
00:12:47,445 --> 00:12:48,804
And now that you mentioned it, like, especially
346
00:12:48,804 --> 00:12:50,565
in rural areas, it it benefits as we're
347
00:12:50,565 --> 00:12:52,245
trying to close the digital divide. You know?
348
00:12:52,245 --> 00:12:54,325
Like Yeah. There are areas that would normally
349
00:12:54,325 --> 00:12:56,725
do not have broadband access because it's, like,
350
00:12:56,725 --> 00:12:57,625
just ripping
351
00:12:58,009 --> 00:13:00,350
the floor and installing all this this fiber
352
00:13:00,570 --> 00:13:02,429
is extremely expensive. Maybe nonprofitable
353
00:13:02,809 --> 00:13:04,570
if you don't have a lot of of,
354
00:13:04,889 --> 00:13:06,970
potential customers. But if you have a data
355
00:13:06,970 --> 00:13:07,470
center,
356
00:13:07,769 --> 00:13:09,370
that that's gonna happen, and you're gonna have
357
00:13:09,370 --> 00:13:11,610
that infrastructure built in. And then eventually, people
358
00:13:11,610 --> 00:13:13,365
can can get connected to the internet. So
359
00:13:13,365 --> 00:13:14,964
you might also help some of some of
360
00:13:14,964 --> 00:13:16,644
these rural areas to get connected and and
361
00:13:16,644 --> 00:13:20,004
get that infrastructure that was before nonprofitable to
362
00:13:20,004 --> 00:13:20,504
have.
363
00:13:20,964 --> 00:13:21,464
Yeah.
364
00:13:21,764 --> 00:13:23,144
I gotta wonder if
365
00:13:23,524 --> 00:13:26,264
the hostility that's being created by some policymakers
366
00:13:26,929 --> 00:13:30,149
also opens up an opportunity for other regions
367
00:13:30,289 --> 00:13:32,690
of the country or even the state where
368
00:13:32,690 --> 00:13:33,190
municipalities
369
00:13:33,730 --> 00:13:36,850
can loosen regulations or make the climate more
370
00:13:36,850 --> 00:13:39,569
inviting for data centers to be built in
371
00:13:39,569 --> 00:13:40,309
their location.
372
00:13:40,955 --> 00:13:43,215
Yeah. Data is largely fungible.
373
00:13:43,835 --> 00:13:45,835
A lot of people don't realize this. I
374
00:13:45,835 --> 00:13:48,154
mean, if there there is an eyeball effect.
375
00:13:48,154 --> 00:13:49,835
Right? There is I wanna be close to
376
00:13:49,835 --> 00:13:52,174
the eyeballs as a provider. I got that.
377
00:13:53,274 --> 00:13:54,095
But, nonetheless,
378
00:13:54,940 --> 00:13:57,679
within some realm, data is fungible,
379
00:13:58,059 --> 00:14:00,860
particularly AI processing. It can be moved hither
380
00:14:00,860 --> 00:14:03,759
or thither or yon, and it doesn't really
381
00:14:03,820 --> 00:14:05,039
hurt my processing
382
00:14:05,820 --> 00:14:08,379
to move it hither, thither, or yon. So
383
00:14:08,379 --> 00:14:10,079
yeah, that's that's another.
384
00:14:11,235 --> 00:14:12,754
Are you seeing that kind of thing out
385
00:14:12,754 --> 00:14:14,695
there, Juan? Are you seeing people
386
00:14:16,434 --> 00:14:16,934
Well,
387
00:14:17,475 --> 00:14:19,554
to speak back on what Ned said, I
388
00:14:19,554 --> 00:14:22,215
think that was that that was a mentality,
389
00:14:22,835 --> 00:14:24,215
I I would say earlier
390
00:14:24,860 --> 00:14:27,440
in in in this millennium. Like, when everyone
391
00:14:27,579 --> 00:14:30,799
was fighting to give tax credits or discounted
392
00:14:30,940 --> 00:14:33,419
rates, and and still in some ways happening.
393
00:14:33,419 --> 00:14:34,879
Some states in in
394
00:14:35,339 --> 00:14:37,100
are are still in the process of negotiating
395
00:14:37,100 --> 00:14:38,159
these energy agreements,
396
00:14:38,534 --> 00:14:40,075
essentially, like energy futures,
397
00:14:40,534 --> 00:14:42,475
which is data centers to bring them in,
398
00:14:42,695 --> 00:14:44,954
especially because as as you were mentioning, Russ,
399
00:14:45,254 --> 00:14:47,735
AI is gonna start playing a huge role
400
00:14:47,735 --> 00:14:48,954
in in how we
401
00:14:49,414 --> 00:14:51,575
we we treat data centers in the future.
402
00:14:51,575 --> 00:14:53,414
Because computational power is gonna be
403
00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:56,559
it's essentially gonna be an a a strategic
404
00:14:56,559 --> 00:14:59,440
resource for for the country in general. When
405
00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:01,620
we're fighting, like, the the race
406
00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:04,959
for AI, we wanna be, foreign adversaries like
407
00:15:04,959 --> 00:15:05,459
China,
408
00:15:05,759 --> 00:15:08,159
yadayada, of, like, you want you you wanna
409
00:15:08,159 --> 00:15:10,615
win the AI battle. You need computational power.
410
00:15:10,615 --> 00:15:12,475
You need that back end infrastructure
411
00:15:13,014 --> 00:15:15,595
to make these things work, especially when
412
00:15:16,055 --> 00:15:18,295
other government services are starting to rely on
413
00:15:18,295 --> 00:15:20,055
on AI. Something I mentioned is, like, the
414
00:15:20,055 --> 00:15:23,815
the 911 line is increasingly relying on on
415
00:15:23,815 --> 00:15:25,835
AI to manage calls
416
00:15:26,509 --> 00:15:29,090
to to to make, like, proper,
417
00:15:29,710 --> 00:15:32,450
like, channeling the calls to, like, different operators
418
00:15:32,750 --> 00:15:34,590
that are available or the ones that they
419
00:15:34,590 --> 00:15:36,370
have that seem to have, like,
420
00:15:36,750 --> 00:15:38,669
to being closer to hanging up, for example.
421
00:15:38,669 --> 00:15:40,429
So, like, you have more, like, a seamless
422
00:15:40,429 --> 00:15:40,929
transition.
423
00:15:41,235 --> 00:15:42,995
So if you have this government services relying
424
00:15:42,995 --> 00:15:43,654
on AI,
425
00:15:44,835 --> 00:15:46,514
it it it's you you need data centers
426
00:15:46,514 --> 00:15:48,695
close by. Yeah. You you you need somewhere
427
00:15:48,995 --> 00:15:50,835
to to have this connection, to have this
428
00:15:50,835 --> 00:15:52,375
processing power close by.
429
00:15:53,730 --> 00:15:55,090
I'm not sure if I should be happy
430
00:15:55,090 --> 00:15:58,470
or scared that 911's being handled by AI.
431
00:16:01,889 --> 00:16:04,710
There's wow. Talk about trade offs. Okay.
432
00:16:05,970 --> 00:16:07,809
That's that's a little bit of a worry,
433
00:16:07,809 --> 00:16:10,315
but okay. Yeah. So that so that is
434
00:16:10,315 --> 00:16:12,394
true. There are certain services that need to
435
00:16:12,394 --> 00:16:13,134
be local.
436
00:16:13,514 --> 00:16:15,595
But there are other things where data, like
437
00:16:15,595 --> 00:16:17,195
I said before, is fungible. It can be
438
00:16:17,195 --> 00:16:18,095
moved everywhere
439
00:16:18,555 --> 00:16:21,129
or anywhere. It doesn't really matter. Now, it's
440
00:16:21,129 --> 00:16:22,970
interesting to me because you mentioned Reston a
441
00:16:22,970 --> 00:16:24,909
lot, and I know another big area
442
00:16:25,370 --> 00:16:27,709
for data centers is just north of Charlotte.
443
00:16:28,970 --> 00:16:30,409
What's the name of the city that's just
444
00:16:30,409 --> 00:16:32,649
north of Charlotte? I can't remember now. But
445
00:16:32,649 --> 00:16:34,329
it's where I think Lowe's is and some
446
00:16:34,329 --> 00:16:36,745
other people have their headquarters up there, Charlotte,
447
00:16:36,745 --> 00:16:37,485
North Carolina.
448
00:16:37,865 --> 00:16:40,424
And I know there are other big hot
449
00:16:40,424 --> 00:16:40,924
spots.
450
00:16:42,184 --> 00:16:44,264
I would think Vegas because of the dams
451
00:16:44,264 --> 00:16:46,584
and stuff like this. But it does seem
452
00:16:46,584 --> 00:16:48,365
like they gather in spots,
453
00:16:49,460 --> 00:16:51,480
which would seem to make this harder
454
00:16:51,860 --> 00:16:54,980
regulatory wise. Like, it'd be a lot easier
455
00:16:54,980 --> 00:16:56,680
to convince a community,
456
00:16:57,620 --> 00:16:59,620
like where I live, you know, in in
457
00:16:59,620 --> 00:17:00,120
Knoxville,
458
00:17:00,420 --> 00:17:02,100
to build 1 or 2 data centers in
459
00:17:02,100 --> 00:17:03,240
the outlying areas
460
00:17:03,975 --> 00:17:05,575
and and then go on and find some
461
00:17:05,575 --> 00:17:06,315
other place.
462
00:17:06,855 --> 00:17:08,775
It feels like they do a lot of
463
00:17:08,775 --> 00:17:10,394
trying to build in the same place.
464
00:17:10,855 --> 00:17:12,775
Is that just because of regulatory, or is
465
00:17:12,775 --> 00:17:15,494
that connectivity, or do you know, like, what
466
00:17:15,494 --> 00:17:17,194
what drives that so hard?
467
00:17:17,870 --> 00:17:18,370
I
468
00:17:18,910 --> 00:17:20,910
I haven't found, like at least when I'm
469
00:17:20,910 --> 00:17:23,170
doing this research, I haven't found any any
470
00:17:23,549 --> 00:17:24,610
possible explanation.
471
00:17:24,990 --> 00:17:27,789
But just, you know, spitballing and and especially
472
00:17:27,789 --> 00:17:29,570
seeing other trends, it's for example,
473
00:17:30,029 --> 00:17:31,815
a lot of these data centers are also
474
00:17:31,815 --> 00:17:34,695
because of these regulatory problems or because they
475
00:17:34,695 --> 00:17:36,234
themselves, when a cost,
476
00:17:36,695 --> 00:17:38,394
are trying to produce their own energy.
477
00:17:38,775 --> 00:17:40,934
So part something I mentioned in in this
478
00:17:40,934 --> 00:17:43,815
piece is, for example, Microsoft is spending heavy
479
00:17:43,815 --> 00:17:46,549
amounts of money on solar power for their
480
00:17:46,549 --> 00:17:48,710
data centers. And and even some data centers
481
00:17:48,710 --> 00:17:49,690
in in in
482
00:17:50,789 --> 00:17:52,549
one of the examples I read that even
483
00:17:52,549 --> 00:17:54,869
though I didn't mention in this in this
484
00:17:54,869 --> 00:17:55,369
piece
485
00:17:55,670 --> 00:17:58,150
was when there was a blackout in North
486
00:17:58,150 --> 00:17:59,984
Carolina, it was a data center that was
487
00:17:59,984 --> 00:18:01,765
able to feed back to the grid
488
00:18:02,865 --> 00:18:03,924
and help stabilize
489
00:18:05,025 --> 00:18:08,005
the like, that region's, like, that locality's power
490
00:18:08,144 --> 00:18:10,465
because they had some power stored up from
491
00:18:10,465 --> 00:18:12,465
from their operations. They were feeding back the
492
00:18:12,465 --> 00:18:14,849
grid, and they prevented the blackout from happening.
493
00:18:16,109 --> 00:18:17,730
So I think that cluster
494
00:18:18,190 --> 00:18:20,349
environment with, for example, you have all these
495
00:18:20,349 --> 00:18:23,009
companies investing in their off grid technology
496
00:18:23,389 --> 00:18:26,265
can eventually lead to energy sales between each
497
00:18:26,744 --> 00:18:29,945
other. If someone has some some surplus because
498
00:18:29,945 --> 00:18:30,765
their solar
499
00:18:31,224 --> 00:18:32,664
like, the the sun just hit it the
500
00:18:32,664 --> 00:18:35,065
right angle and and their solar and power
501
00:18:35,065 --> 00:18:36,445
air power meter power
502
00:18:36,904 --> 00:18:39,630
power plant was overpowered and had some ex
503
00:18:39,789 --> 00:18:41,549
excess energy, maybe they can sell it off
504
00:18:41,549 --> 00:18:43,730
immediately, have a spot, like, a spot transaction
505
00:18:44,029 --> 00:18:45,710
to a data center that maybe is not
506
00:18:45,710 --> 00:18:47,869
as bad or maybe just wants energy at
507
00:18:47,869 --> 00:18:48,450
a discount.
508
00:18:48,910 --> 00:18:51,410
And and and I think these clusters eventually
509
00:18:51,549 --> 00:18:53,705
help each other, as as you mentioned as
510
00:18:53,705 --> 00:18:56,045
we mentioned before, sometimes when you have already
511
00:18:56,505 --> 00:18:59,164
broke ground, when you have already laid infrastructure
512
00:18:59,305 --> 00:18:59,965
to handle,
513
00:19:00,744 --> 00:19:03,305
like, connectivity infrastructure to handle all this this
514
00:19:03,305 --> 00:19:03,805
power,
515
00:19:04,585 --> 00:19:07,079
other companies might want to decide to pig
516
00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:09,259
piggyback off that and maybe compensate
517
00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:12,279
the one who undertook the biggest capital investment,
518
00:19:12,279 --> 00:19:14,359
which was the first mover. So I think
519
00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:16,940
that's why sometimes you get this cluster areas
520
00:19:17,159 --> 00:19:19,419
and this cluster economy is going on.
521
00:19:19,914 --> 00:19:22,494
Yeah. I think back to the, the regulations,
522
00:19:23,755 --> 00:19:25,214
and just dealing with
523
00:19:25,515 --> 00:19:26,015
regulatory
524
00:19:26,474 --> 00:19:30,015
and zoning bodies and in various municipalities,
525
00:19:30,795 --> 00:19:31,615
once one
526
00:19:32,170 --> 00:19:34,109
company has successfully navigated
527
00:19:34,570 --> 00:19:35,950
that in an area,
528
00:19:36,250 --> 00:19:38,089
they now know how to do it and
529
00:19:38,089 --> 00:19:40,490
the community has learned how to navigate that
530
00:19:40,490 --> 00:19:42,410
as well. So when the next data center
531
00:19:42,410 --> 00:19:44,589
rolls in and wants to get connected because
532
00:19:44,650 --> 00:19:47,244
the network's already there and some of the
533
00:19:47,244 --> 00:19:49,964
other physical resources there, the policy body is
534
00:19:49,964 --> 00:19:52,204
also there to help them actually get the
535
00:19:52,204 --> 00:19:53,184
process done.
536
00:19:53,804 --> 00:19:54,704
Yeah. Luke.
537
00:19:56,125 --> 00:19:58,464
Yeah. It seems like that. Yeah. So
538
00:19:59,519 --> 00:19:59,600
it
539
00:20:00,799 --> 00:20:02,720
so we also have this thing you're talking
540
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:03,220
about
541
00:20:03,759 --> 00:20:06,080
with people wanting to slow down AI and
542
00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:07,619
people wanting to slow down
543
00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:08,660
the
544
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:09,859
digitization
545
00:20:10,799 --> 00:20:11,539
of society.
546
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,259
And I wonder how much those people realize
547
00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:14,820
that
548
00:20:15,575 --> 00:20:17,815
you might I mean, it's not just online
549
00:20:17,815 --> 00:20:20,474
sales that's going on here. It's supply chain.
550
00:20:20,775 --> 00:20:21,255
It's
551
00:20:21,734 --> 00:20:23,515
everything is being digitized.
552
00:20:23,974 --> 00:20:26,394
You're actually not slowing things down
553
00:20:26,934 --> 00:20:28,875
in the way you think you are
554
00:20:30,295 --> 00:20:30,795
by
555
00:20:31,150 --> 00:20:33,789
trying to stop data centers from being built
556
00:20:33,789 --> 00:20:34,609
in localities.
557
00:20:35,309 --> 00:20:37,329
Like, things are still gonna be digitized.
558
00:20:37,869 --> 00:20:39,730
And even if you do slow it down,
559
00:20:39,869 --> 00:20:41,329
it's not just gonna impact
560
00:20:41,710 --> 00:20:44,769
online sales companies, it's gonna impact your local
561
00:20:45,230 --> 00:20:47,194
hardware store and your local
562
00:20:47,654 --> 00:20:49,835
deli, your locally owned deli.
563
00:20:50,214 --> 00:20:51,414
I I I mean, how much
564
00:20:51,894 --> 00:20:54,214
do people understand those connections? Or is that
565
00:20:54,214 --> 00:20:55,734
like, oh, they're just they just don't have
566
00:20:55,734 --> 00:20:56,474
any idea
567
00:20:56,855 --> 00:20:59,015
that those types of things are interacting in
568
00:20:59,015 --> 00:20:59,674
that way?
569
00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:03,140
Yeah. Yeah. So so with the digrowth movement,
570
00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:03,759
it's,
571
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:06,799
it's a movement that I I struggle sometimes
572
00:21:06,799 --> 00:21:08,559
to wrap my head around because, as you
573
00:21:08,559 --> 00:21:10,180
mentioned, it's incredibly shortsighted.
574
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:13,059
They they think that,
575
00:21:13,434 --> 00:21:15,994
you know, those sacrifices that those small businesses
576
00:21:15,994 --> 00:21:17,295
that are gonna struggle
577
00:21:17,994 --> 00:21:19,455
because of that degrowth,
578
00:21:20,634 --> 00:21:22,955
are kind of casualties in, like, the bigger
579
00:21:22,955 --> 00:21:25,434
picture, that they think that the economy is
580
00:21:25,434 --> 00:21:28,099
producing too much. We're producing too fast, there's
581
00:21:28,099 --> 00:21:29,779
a lot of junk, there's a lot of
582
00:21:29,779 --> 00:21:30,279
waste,
583
00:21:30,579 --> 00:21:32,980
that we're consuming too much energy, their full
584
00:21:32,980 --> 00:21:35,140
emissions are too high, and we're making the
585
00:21:35,140 --> 00:21:36,599
environment worse for everyone.
586
00:21:38,259 --> 00:21:39,940
And this is why I just eventually don't
587
00:21:39,940 --> 00:21:41,480
subscribe to this movement.
588
00:21:43,484 --> 00:21:45,725
It's missing the forest for the trees. It's
589
00:21:45,725 --> 00:21:49,085
missing how, for example, the 911 line, as
590
00:21:49,085 --> 00:21:51,105
in we're bringing it back to the example
591
00:21:51,325 --> 00:21:52,225
of AI.
592
00:21:52,605 --> 00:21:54,845
It's using AI not because it means that
593
00:21:54,845 --> 00:21:56,470
gen AI is going to answer our calls.
594
00:21:56,470 --> 00:21:59,349
It's that AI is doing queue management, for
595
00:21:59,349 --> 00:22:01,210
example, to make that operation smoother
596
00:22:01,829 --> 00:22:04,089
so operators can pick up the call sooner
597
00:22:04,630 --> 00:22:07,450
because we're having nationwide shortages
598
00:22:07,829 --> 00:22:08,490
of 911
599
00:22:09,434 --> 00:22:11,994
operators. My area in DEC DC is struggling
600
00:22:11,994 --> 00:22:15,115
because there's not enough trained 911 operators to
601
00:22:15,115 --> 00:22:16,575
answer the calls on time.
602
00:22:17,194 --> 00:22:17,694
So
603
00:22:18,315 --> 00:22:21,934
when you're causing this degrowth, when you're attacking
604
00:22:22,075 --> 00:22:24,909
AI and these AI systems are being ingrained
605
00:22:24,909 --> 00:22:26,289
into government services
606
00:22:26,589 --> 00:22:29,009
or just lifesaving services in general,
607
00:22:29,630 --> 00:22:31,409
those are the lives you're sacrificing.
608
00:22:31,789 --> 00:22:33,549
So you're not making the world a better
609
00:22:33,549 --> 00:22:34,049
place.
610
00:22:34,909 --> 00:22:37,525
You're objectively making it worse, especially because you
611
00:22:37,525 --> 00:22:38,664
have so many areas
612
00:22:39,045 --> 00:22:41,785
that, right now, have labor shortages where labor
613
00:22:42,085 --> 00:22:43,545
is either not there,
614
00:22:44,005 --> 00:22:46,644
the skilled workers are not there, or they're
615
00:22:46,644 --> 00:22:48,965
just not willing to work in these areas
616
00:22:48,965 --> 00:22:50,880
because they find better salaries somewhere.
617
00:22:51,279 --> 00:22:53,039
So you need AI to fill in those
618
00:22:53,039 --> 00:22:53,539
voids,
619
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:54,740
so
620
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:56,180
so you're just
621
00:22:56,799 --> 00:22:59,279
sacrificing a lot of of services that might
622
00:22:59,279 --> 00:23:01,759
be essential, like, for example, a 911 line.
623
00:23:01,759 --> 00:23:04,400
Yeah. Well, you're also hurting local. Like, even
624
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,005
a little local hardware store might be set
625
00:23:07,005 --> 00:23:09,325
up so they know what to buy at
626
00:23:09,325 --> 00:23:10,065
what time,
627
00:23:10,445 --> 00:23:12,445
you know, the right time of season, and
628
00:23:12,445 --> 00:23:14,525
oh, well, look at spring. How many hoses
629
00:23:14,525 --> 00:23:16,945
do I need to buy to handle this?
630
00:23:17,005 --> 00:23:19,244
How many how many sprayers do I need
631
00:23:19,244 --> 00:23:21,420
to buy? How many nails? All that stuff
632
00:23:21,580 --> 00:23:23,920
is all grounded in data analytics.
633
00:23:24,619 --> 00:23:27,340
And really, you're not helping the local hardware
634
00:23:27,340 --> 00:23:27,840
store
635
00:23:28,220 --> 00:23:30,140
by putting them in a position where they
636
00:23:30,140 --> 00:23:32,880
can't get that data so that their inventory
637
00:23:33,100 --> 00:23:35,920
matches what's needed in the local area.
638
00:23:36,265 --> 00:23:38,025
I just that that's that's really kind of
639
00:23:38,025 --> 00:23:40,265
a it's kind of a crazy argument to
640
00:23:40,265 --> 00:23:43,085
me from that perspective. So yeah. Another
641
00:23:43,544 --> 00:23:45,804
kind of direction this can go is
642
00:23:46,105 --> 00:23:48,904
how are data center operators pushing back? For
643
00:23:48,904 --> 00:23:51,724
instance, recently, I saw that Microsoft.
644
00:23:52,289 --> 00:23:54,210
Now after the Three Mile Island thing, a
645
00:23:54,210 --> 00:23:56,150
lot of people think the Three Mile Island
646
00:23:56,610 --> 00:23:57,670
plant went away,
647
00:23:58,289 --> 00:24:00,529
and it didn't. It's been producing electricity all
648
00:24:00,529 --> 00:24:01,269
these years.
649
00:24:01,809 --> 00:24:02,309
And
650
00:24:03,009 --> 00:24:05,809
now Microsoft has talked about refurbishing it or
651
00:24:05,809 --> 00:24:08,345
is putting money into refurbishing it and either
652
00:24:08,345 --> 00:24:10,825
partnering with another company or buying it outright
653
00:24:10,825 --> 00:24:12,765
or something, I don't know all the details,
654
00:24:13,384 --> 00:24:15,705
to use it for data center power. So,
655
00:24:15,705 --> 00:24:17,545
like, is this one of those pushbacks we're
656
00:24:17,545 --> 00:24:19,785
seeing? It's like people are going out and
657
00:24:19,785 --> 00:24:22,710
saying, fine. You don't want me to get
658
00:24:22,710 --> 00:24:23,930
power off your grid.
659
00:24:24,230 --> 00:24:25,370
I'm just gonna go
660
00:24:25,830 --> 00:24:27,910
do it myself. Like, is that is that
661
00:24:27,910 --> 00:24:30,630
a pushback we're starting to see? Yeah. I
662
00:24:30,630 --> 00:24:32,390
mean, for the first pushback they do is,
663
00:24:32,390 --> 00:24:33,884
you know, they try to fend off fend
664
00:24:33,884 --> 00:24:36,384
off this loss. I think, first
665
00:24:36,684 --> 00:24:38,365
of all first of all, they're trying to
666
00:24:38,365 --> 00:24:40,525
mitigate that harm, in any way that they
667
00:24:40,525 --> 00:24:42,705
can. But, also, as you mentioned,
668
00:24:43,724 --> 00:24:46,480
they they're taking advantage of what I've seen,
669
00:24:46,619 --> 00:24:48,539
these other groups that is kind of the
670
00:24:48,539 --> 00:24:51,019
counter the counter phase of the degrowth movement
671
00:24:51,019 --> 00:24:52,400
is the abundance movement
672
00:24:52,700 --> 00:24:54,619
of, like, we need more energy for everything.
673
00:24:54,619 --> 00:24:55,680
Like, there's no
674
00:24:56,700 --> 00:24:58,940
developed and this is, like, I think, a
675
00:24:58,940 --> 00:25:01,359
lot of evidence shows the right it's that
676
00:25:01,424 --> 00:25:03,765
there's no developed country that does not,
677
00:25:04,305 --> 00:25:05,924
have a high energy demand.
678
00:25:06,545 --> 00:25:07,605
That is a reality.
679
00:25:08,305 --> 00:25:09,985
So what what can we do about it?
680
00:25:09,985 --> 00:25:12,325
We can just make more and, hopefully, more
681
00:25:13,424 --> 00:25:14,644
emission free energy
682
00:25:14,970 --> 00:25:17,529
for cheap. So just try to create as
683
00:25:17,529 --> 00:25:20,109
much energy as possible. So that means energy
684
00:25:20,169 --> 00:25:22,809
is cheap, and, hopefully, that energy is also
685
00:25:22,809 --> 00:25:24,990
clean. One of the one of the options,
686
00:25:25,049 --> 00:25:27,210
nuclear, as we've seen, and as we've seen
687
00:25:27,210 --> 00:25:28,429
this, like, nuclear resurgence
688
00:25:29,005 --> 00:25:30,924
movement that people wanna push for, like, their
689
00:25:30,924 --> 00:25:31,904
reopening nuclear
690
00:25:32,285 --> 00:25:34,605
nuclear sites. We see countries like France doing
691
00:25:34,605 --> 00:25:35,424
fairly well,
692
00:25:36,125 --> 00:25:38,944
in with with a nuclear based grid, especially
693
00:25:39,085 --> 00:25:42,204
as it might help a cleaner transition toward
694
00:25:42,204 --> 00:25:43,265
completely renewables,
695
00:25:43,909 --> 00:25:45,450
like like solar and wind.
696
00:25:46,390 --> 00:25:49,269
As I mentioned, these companies themselves are investing
697
00:25:49,269 --> 00:25:52,569
in in zero emission energy production by themselves.
698
00:25:52,950 --> 00:25:55,929
They are leveraging solar panels in in
699
00:25:56,230 --> 00:25:56,970
in the
700
00:25:57,565 --> 00:25:58,865
actual physical buildings.
701
00:25:59,164 --> 00:26:01,404
They're creating solar farms close to their data
702
00:26:01,404 --> 00:26:04,065
centers too, and just trying to leverage,
703
00:26:05,565 --> 00:26:07,724
an energy of a strategy of creating as
704
00:26:07,724 --> 00:26:09,565
much energy as possible. As you mentioned, if
705
00:26:09,565 --> 00:26:10,845
you do not don't let us go on
706
00:26:10,845 --> 00:26:13,289
the on the grid, well maybe create a
707
00:26:13,309 --> 00:26:15,230
great own grid and, hopefully, in a way
708
00:26:15,230 --> 00:26:16,670
that it's not going to be a political
709
00:26:16,670 --> 00:26:19,309
liability. Because if they go with gas, if
710
00:26:19,309 --> 00:26:19,970
they go
711
00:26:20,350 --> 00:26:21,009
with coal
712
00:26:21,630 --> 00:26:22,130
or
713
00:26:22,430 --> 00:26:24,350
oil, they're for sure going to have some
714
00:26:24,350 --> 00:26:25,330
pushback. So,
715
00:26:25,785 --> 00:26:27,865
that's usually what we we're seeing, these trends
716
00:26:27,865 --> 00:26:29,805
of, like, trying to go for this
717
00:26:30,105 --> 00:26:32,765
green energy or renewable energy or at least
718
00:26:33,144 --> 00:26:34,765
nuclear, which is less harmful.
719
00:26:35,305 --> 00:26:37,384
I'm I'm thinking about some of the ways
720
00:26:37,384 --> 00:26:37,884
that
721
00:26:38,769 --> 00:26:42,369
the next generation of chips is specifically focused
722
00:26:42,369 --> 00:26:43,109
on reducing
723
00:26:43,410 --> 00:26:44,630
the energy footprint
724
00:26:45,089 --> 00:26:47,730
for data centers or making more efficient use
725
00:26:47,730 --> 00:26:49,190
of existing data centers.
726
00:26:49,730 --> 00:26:51,429
But the research and the fabrication
727
00:26:52,184 --> 00:26:54,264
facilities that are required to make that next
728
00:26:54,264 --> 00:26:56,764
generation of chips also require construction
729
00:26:57,464 --> 00:26:59,325
and a certain amount of power
730
00:26:59,625 --> 00:27:02,684
and and processing and raw materials. So
731
00:27:02,984 --> 00:27:04,664
we if we want to get to a
732
00:27:04,664 --> 00:27:05,404
more efficient
733
00:27:06,250 --> 00:27:08,890
data center, we have to allow the chip
734
00:27:08,890 --> 00:27:11,390
industry to mature and grow as well.
735
00:27:11,929 --> 00:27:14,009
Right. We need to build to be able
736
00:27:14,009 --> 00:27:16,569
to build cheaper. We need to build expensive
737
00:27:16,569 --> 00:27:18,589
stuff to be able to build cheaper stuff.
738
00:27:18,809 --> 00:27:20,029
Well, yeah. And I think
739
00:27:21,545 --> 00:27:24,424
think think about how much less power some
740
00:27:24,424 --> 00:27:27,164
devices require now than they did
741
00:27:27,785 --> 00:27:28,765
10 years ago.
742
00:27:29,065 --> 00:27:29,724
You know,
743
00:27:30,424 --> 00:27:32,424
consider what my phone can do, the amount
744
00:27:32,424 --> 00:27:34,825
of processing power that's in my phone based
745
00:27:34,825 --> 00:27:37,349
off the amount of battery it actually requires
746
00:27:37,490 --> 00:27:39,890
to get that work done. And it's gotta
747
00:27:39,890 --> 00:27:41,730
be an order of magnitude lower than it
748
00:27:41,730 --> 00:27:44,210
was 10 years ago for the same amount
749
00:27:44,210 --> 00:27:46,849
of processing power. Right? So if we take
750
00:27:46,849 --> 00:27:47,589
that same
751
00:27:48,375 --> 00:27:50,295
outlook and say we can do that again
752
00:27:50,295 --> 00:27:51,914
in 10 or less years,
753
00:27:52,375 --> 00:27:53,195
that's cutting
754
00:27:53,654 --> 00:27:55,095
the amount of power that some of these
755
00:27:55,095 --> 00:27:57,654
data centers are requiring or the density of
756
00:27:57,654 --> 00:27:58,954
computing the data centers
757
00:27:59,494 --> 00:28:02,390
being vastly increased while taking less power over
758
00:28:02,390 --> 00:28:03,529
the next 10 years.
759
00:28:03,830 --> 00:28:05,190
I'm not saying the problem is gonna sort
760
00:28:05,190 --> 00:28:08,070
itself out, but I I do think that
761
00:28:08,070 --> 00:28:09,910
the march of technology is going to make
762
00:28:09,910 --> 00:28:10,890
us more efficient
763
00:28:11,269 --> 00:28:12,410
in our data centers,
764
00:28:13,865 --> 00:28:16,664
while also still requiring some expansion. No. Yeah.
765
00:28:16,664 --> 00:28:18,184
So I was gonna say, like, I I'm
766
00:28:18,184 --> 00:28:19,465
not a betting man, but I would never
767
00:28:19,465 --> 00:28:21,484
bet against Moore's Law. And and
768
00:28:22,265 --> 00:28:24,045
and as you mentioned, Ned, I think
769
00:28:24,585 --> 00:28:26,009
that that is some of the trade offs,
770
00:28:26,089 --> 00:28:26,990
especially in this
771
00:28:27,529 --> 00:28:29,130
or wick or some people call it wicked
772
00:28:29,130 --> 00:28:31,150
systems. So, like, sometimes you need to,
773
00:28:31,609 --> 00:28:33,130
let's just say, invest money to make money.
774
00:28:33,130 --> 00:28:35,369
In this case, invest energy to save energy.
775
00:28:35,609 --> 00:28:37,210
You you gotta choose all this r and
776
00:28:37,210 --> 00:28:40,269
d. That eventually pays off in that everyone
777
00:28:40,894 --> 00:28:42,514
is consuming less individually.
778
00:28:43,934 --> 00:28:45,075
And, eventually,
779
00:28:46,095 --> 00:28:48,575
if all consumer grade electronics are more efficient,
780
00:28:48,575 --> 00:28:50,654
you eventually get to orders of magnitude of
781
00:28:50,654 --> 00:28:53,294
savings. And it's often unpredictable where the savings
782
00:28:53,294 --> 00:28:55,375
are gonna come from. But I I think
783
00:28:55,375 --> 00:28:56,034
it's something
784
00:28:56,410 --> 00:28:58,329
life has has started us in the last
785
00:28:58,329 --> 00:28:59,630
50 years is that
786
00:28:59,930 --> 00:29:01,470
computing power, it's
787
00:29:02,170 --> 00:29:03,930
I I I just don't see when it
788
00:29:03,930 --> 00:29:06,089
stops. It keeps it keeps proving itself right.
789
00:29:06,089 --> 00:29:08,329
Yeah. Yeah. It it is interesting because, I
790
00:29:08,329 --> 00:29:09,950
mean, you do come to a point,
791
00:29:10,775 --> 00:29:12,534
and we may hit this point before we
792
00:29:12,534 --> 00:29:13,595
hit anything else,
793
00:29:13,974 --> 00:29:16,615
where AI has consumed so much information that
794
00:29:16,615 --> 00:29:18,694
there's just not more information that's fresh and
795
00:29:18,694 --> 00:29:19,194
new
796
00:29:19,494 --> 00:29:20,154
to consume.
797
00:29:20,615 --> 00:29:23,174
Right? We're already running into situations where AI
798
00:29:23,174 --> 00:29:26,029
is feeding itself off of other AI output
799
00:29:26,329 --> 00:29:28,650
and causing problems in the way it builds
800
00:29:28,650 --> 00:29:29,150
things.
801
00:29:29,609 --> 00:29:31,130
And there's only so many sensors you can
802
00:29:31,130 --> 00:29:32,650
put in and stuff like that. I don't
803
00:29:32,650 --> 00:29:34,730
know where we get to that point. But
804
00:29:34,730 --> 00:29:37,529
right now, Kai Fu Lee's virtuous cycle, as
805
00:29:37,529 --> 00:29:38,785
he calls it, I don't think it's really
806
00:29:38,785 --> 00:29:41,605
virtuous, but that's what he calls it, and,
807
00:29:42,464 --> 00:29:45,105
Moore's law and then Metcalfe's law are all
808
00:29:45,105 --> 00:29:46,244
still 3 interacting
809
00:29:46,865 --> 00:29:48,484
in a way that's still producing
810
00:29:49,184 --> 00:29:50,404
very high growth
811
00:29:50,865 --> 00:29:51,765
very rapidly.
812
00:29:52,359 --> 00:29:52,859
And
813
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:55,799
there's no definite way to know there's gonna
814
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:58,359
this is gonna end, right? There's no there's
815
00:29:58,359 --> 00:30:00,059
no end in sight at this point.
816
00:30:00,599 --> 00:30:02,519
So these are definitely problems we need to
817
00:30:02,519 --> 00:30:04,679
deal with and figure out. 1, where can
818
00:30:04,679 --> 00:30:06,615
people find you? I know I found this
819
00:30:06,775 --> 00:30:08,954
article on protecting the tax taxpayer.
820
00:30:09,335 --> 00:30:10,775
You know, there do you write any other
821
00:30:10,775 --> 00:30:12,615
place than there? Is there, like, a regular
822
00:30:12,615 --> 00:30:14,855
column or anything that you write about these
823
00:30:14,855 --> 00:30:16,694
issues? So my my work is at the
824
00:30:16,694 --> 00:30:19,815
Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a senior policy analyst. I
825
00:30:19,815 --> 00:30:21,575
I I I pitch a lot of places.
826
00:30:21,575 --> 00:30:23,639
I don't have, like, a a only one
827
00:30:23,639 --> 00:30:25,159
place. So if anyone wants to reach out
828
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:26,839
Okay. You can reach out to my email,
829
00:30:26,839 --> 00:30:27,899
which is just juan@protecting
830
00:30:29,639 --> 00:30:30,139
taxpayers.org,
831
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,339
or or Okay. Also on on twitter/x.
832
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:35,259
That's juanmglondono,
833
00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:37,500
with an r at the end.
834
00:30:38,484 --> 00:30:41,044
Awesome. Great. Ned, where can people find you
835
00:30:41,044 --> 00:30:42,804
if they want to? You can find all
836
00:30:42,804 --> 00:30:44,424
the things that I do at nedinthecloud.com.
837
00:30:45,605 --> 00:30:47,865
Just go there. There's links to everything else.
838
00:30:48,325 --> 00:30:50,164
That's awesome. That's the way I use rule
839
00:30:50,164 --> 00:30:52,690
11 now. It's just mostly as a way
840
00:30:52,690 --> 00:30:54,369
to find me, find other things that I
841
00:30:54,369 --> 00:30:56,450
do. Alright. Well, I'm Russ White. You can
842
00:30:56,450 --> 00:30:57,830
find me here at the hedge at rule11.techrule11academy.
843
00:30:59,809 --> 00:31:02,130
I'm actually on x a little more often
844
00:31:02,130 --> 00:31:04,609
now, not still not tons. But,
845
00:31:06,224 --> 00:31:08,545
again, as always, we know that we live
846
00:31:08,545 --> 00:31:10,545
in an attention based economy, and we thank
847
00:31:10,545 --> 00:31:12,144
you for your time listening all the way
848
00:31:12,144 --> 00:31:13,825
to the bitter end of this episode of
849
00:31:13,825 --> 00:31:16,065
The Hedge. And we will catch you next
850
00:31:16,065 --> 00:31:16,565
time.
00:00:01,040 --> 00:00:03,060
Join us as we gather around the hedge,
2
00:00:03,120 --> 00:00:06,019
where we dig into technology, business, and culture
3
00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:08,419
with the finest minds in computer networking.
4
00:00:20,974 --> 00:00:23,234
Well, hello, Ned. First time on The Hedge.
5
00:00:24,175 --> 00:00:25,394
Where are you physically?
6
00:00:26,550 --> 00:00:28,710
Physically, I am in my office in a
7
00:00:28,710 --> 00:00:29,210
basement
8
00:00:29,510 --> 00:00:32,549
in Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Just outside
9
00:00:32,549 --> 00:00:34,710
of Philly. Okay. Yeah. You may not know
10
00:00:34,710 --> 00:00:35,989
this, but I was in the 4 30
11
00:00:35,989 --> 00:00:39,109
8th comm group, which is stationed well, at
12
00:00:39,109 --> 00:00:39,770
the time,
13
00:00:40,344 --> 00:00:43,304
was stationed at Maguire Air Force Base, which
14
00:00:43,304 --> 00:00:45,784
is in Cherry Hill. So Mhmm. We used
15
00:00:45,784 --> 00:00:46,844
to drive to Philly.
16
00:00:47,465 --> 00:00:49,725
If we wanted to go to the big
17
00:00:49,784 --> 00:00:52,265
city, we drove to Philly. That's what we
18
00:00:52,265 --> 00:00:52,765
did.
19
00:00:53,670 --> 00:00:55,909
So I'm pretty familiar with that area, actually.
20
00:00:55,909 --> 00:00:57,289
Believe it or not, I was there
21
00:00:57,670 --> 00:00:59,350
for 8 seven and a half years, 8
22
00:00:59,350 --> 00:01:02,489
years, something like that. Okay. So cool. Yeah.
23
00:01:03,829 --> 00:01:04,329
Alright.
24
00:01:04,870 --> 00:01:07,189
And we are joined by 1
25
00:01:07,935 --> 00:01:09,875
I'm gonna mess your last name up, Juan.
26
00:01:10,015 --> 00:01:12,354
It's better if you just say it. Antonio.
27
00:01:13,694 --> 00:01:14,194
Okay.
28
00:01:14,495 --> 00:01:16,754
Awesome. Thank you for having me, Russ. Yeah.
29
00:01:16,894 --> 00:01:19,854
So where are you, Juan? What physically are
30
00:01:19,854 --> 00:01:20,515
you located?
31
00:01:21,049 --> 00:01:23,310
I am in the in the DC area,
32
00:01:24,090 --> 00:01:25,790
specifically in Arlington, Virginia.
33
00:01:26,329 --> 00:01:26,829
Okay.
34
00:01:27,530 --> 00:01:29,710
Arlington. Yes. I've been there a lot too.
35
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Do you know where the, old Freddie Mae
36
00:01:32,010 --> 00:01:34,909
Freddie Mac Fannie Mae Freddie Mac building is?
37
00:01:35,015 --> 00:01:36,854
It's actually in Reston. It's not in Arlington.
38
00:01:36,854 --> 00:01:38,634
So it's the other side of town. But
39
00:01:39,254 --> 00:01:41,754
when I worked for AS not for ASM.
40
00:01:42,055 --> 00:01:44,875
When I worked for, VeriSign, that's their headquarters
41
00:01:45,494 --> 00:01:47,414
is in Reston. So I was in Reston,
42
00:01:47,414 --> 00:01:49,494
I don't know, every couple of weeks for
43
00:01:49,494 --> 00:01:50,310
a long time.
44
00:01:51,109 --> 00:01:52,950
So alright. So we're talking about data center
45
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regulations and I think we kick this off,
46
00:01:56,069 --> 00:01:58,009
from an article you wrote. Right, Juan?
47
00:01:58,310 --> 00:02:00,950
Yes. From yeah. About data center regulations and
48
00:02:00,950 --> 00:02:02,810
the importance of data center regulations.
49
00:02:03,109 --> 00:02:05,769
And I think the the main thrust is
50
00:02:06,034 --> 00:02:08,354
is that we're I'll just start by saying,
51
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I think what our main thrust is is
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that
53
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we are at the point where localities
54
00:02:15,155 --> 00:02:17,715
are kind of regulating to the point where
55
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we can't build new data centers
56
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for power, for
57
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environmental reasons, whatever it is. So maybe we
58
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start there and, like, talk a little bit
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00:02:26,590 --> 00:02:29,310
about the regulatory environment one, and, like, what's
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00:02:29,310 --> 00:02:30,769
going on, what you've noticed,
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00:02:31,310 --> 00:02:32,930
what you've seen, stuff like that.
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00:02:33,784 --> 00:02:36,685
Yeah, Rose. I think you you you nailed
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the the nail on the head right there.
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It's that
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data centers are,
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after what I think it was a high
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noon period,
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where
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every state want to have a data center.
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As you mentioned, Reston, for example, one of
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the data center capitals of the country.
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You know, there's been a lot of influx,
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and and everyone was looking at them with,
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rose tinted glasses, kinda.
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Now the tide has turned
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on them. And and when I was when
77
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I was thinking about this, the best way
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to exemplify it is they are kind of
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fighting a battle on 3 fronts. 3 different
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groups of people,
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are are pushing for for data center regulation
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some way or another.
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00:03:13,745 --> 00:03:16,110
On one side, you have, for example, the
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anti tech movement,
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that which is rather big in congress. You
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know, people are big and angry at big
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tech for whatever reason,
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and they be just been trying to do,
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00:03:25,310 --> 00:03:27,389
like, a death by a 1,000 cuts. The
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Luddites.
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Yes.
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Luddites.
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Other people are, like, are are just concerned
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about free speech, for example. So that's the
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00:03:35,754 --> 00:03:38,074
more than conservative side. Others are concerned about
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keeping safe
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00:03:39,194 --> 00:03:41,354
like, children's safety online. That things that platforms
98
00:03:41,354 --> 00:03:42,414
have failed children.
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00:03:42,875 --> 00:03:44,909
And and they just wanna give a punch
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of big tech. And they sometimes they think
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00:03:47,550 --> 00:03:50,270
it's like, okay. Let's go against data centers,
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because that's, integral part of their operation.
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If you heard, like,
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what are the cores of the business model
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or, like, their basic infrastructure,
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you get ahead at them, and then you
107
00:04:01,354 --> 00:04:02,415
can hit their profitability.
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Yeah. That's that's on one side.
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On the other side, I would say you
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have other group 2 groups that I would
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say a bit little bit related, but I
112
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don't wanna lump them together. It's the AI
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degrowth. There's a the actual issue. Like, people
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are saying AI is going too fast,
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00:04:18,979 --> 00:04:21,779
and we slow them down. And AI, of
116
00:04:21,779 --> 00:04:23,860
course, relies a lot of data centers. AI
117
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needs data, and and data centers are, like,
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the back backbone of that. And, therefore,
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if you regulate them away,
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AI go slower,
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and and and and their objective
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is fulfilled.
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And then you'd have this economic group
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slash environmentalist
125
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group of, like, what I would call them
126
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the degrowthers,
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00:04:45,770 --> 00:04:48,110
people that think that the economy
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growing is actually at this point harmful for
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the environment, harmful for the world because we're
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consuming too much. We're tossing away too much.
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We're creating waste. We're consuming a lot of
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energy.
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00:04:59,285 --> 00:05:01,605
And and data centers are part of that,
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especially in an era of the digital economy
135
00:05:04,165 --> 00:05:04,985
that ecommerce
136
00:05:05,524 --> 00:05:08,985
has just ramped up consumption, ramped up production
137
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to these unhealthy levels.
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So if
139
00:05:13,270 --> 00:05:16,150
you cause that degrowth, you slow down the
140
00:05:16,150 --> 00:05:16,650
economy,
141
00:05:17,110 --> 00:05:19,350
the environment is gonna benefit, and and we
142
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as humans are gonna benefit.
143
00:05:21,270 --> 00:05:24,395
So once again, we go against this resource
144
00:05:24,395 --> 00:05:24,875
hungry,
145
00:05:25,274 --> 00:05:27,035
we we must like, that's, like, for sake
146
00:05:27,035 --> 00:05:29,355
of transparency. Like, we say, like, data centers
147
00:05:29,355 --> 00:05:30,335
are resource hungry,
148
00:05:31,355 --> 00:05:33,274
installations. They they eat a lot of energy.
149
00:05:33,274 --> 00:05:34,714
They need a lot of air to operate.
150
00:05:34,714 --> 00:05:35,995
They do a lot of a lot of
151
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computing powers going on going on there, and
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that needs energy.
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So
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you gotta go against one of the biggest
155
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consumers in the energy market,
156
00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:46,160
according to to these people. It's like that's
157
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the way you you cause that degrowth. You
158
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take the biggest
159
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demand for power out by taking out data
160
00:05:52,954 --> 00:05:53,454
centers.
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00:05:54,474 --> 00:05:56,894
That's that's interesting. So what kinds
162
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of regulation
163
00:05:59,754 --> 00:06:01,375
are these people pushing?
164
00:06:03,009 --> 00:06:05,250
They're pushing, obviously, environmental, but, like, can you
165
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describe some of the techniques,
166
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that they're that they're going after?
167
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Yeah. So,
168
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they are wielding a broad portfolio of regulations,
169
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and and and it's funny sometimes how they
170
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can get looked in some things. So one
171
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of those, it's permitting
172
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and and zoning laws,
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especially so in in the in the piece
174
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I I mentioned, I think it let me
175
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have over here. Arizona, Illinois, and Arkansas,
176
00:06:32,930 --> 00:06:35,649
have passed new new regulations in in in
177
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about the zoning and permitting,
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regimes that essentially ban
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the construction of more data center buildings.
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So they're they're saying, you know, they're affecting
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zoning. They're they're they're affecting the grid, essential
182
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services. Therefore,
183
00:06:51,105 --> 00:06:51,764
we ban,
184
00:06:52,545 --> 00:06:54,964
the construction of this infrastructure of these buildings.
185
00:06:55,824 --> 00:06:57,904
Other, like, other in this more, like, the
186
00:06:57,904 --> 00:06:58,404
environmental
187
00:06:58,705 --> 00:06:59,205
approach,
188
00:06:59,509 --> 00:07:00,490
they are regulating
189
00:07:01,750 --> 00:07:02,810
backup generators.
190
00:07:03,430 --> 00:07:05,829
So a lot of them are saying that
191
00:07:05,829 --> 00:07:08,629
the backup generators that this data centers must
192
00:07:08,629 --> 00:07:11,029
have have to be clean energy. Like, they
193
00:07:11,029 --> 00:07:12,649
they cannot have fossil fuels
194
00:07:13,029 --> 00:07:15,289
and and and and, essentially, just
195
00:07:16,365 --> 00:07:17,665
just, like, handicapping
196
00:07:18,125 --> 00:07:20,204
the capacity of this of this generators.
197
00:07:21,165 --> 00:07:21,904
And others,
198
00:07:22,285 --> 00:07:24,704
what are the what what is what's happening,
199
00:07:24,764 --> 00:07:25,584
it's that
200
00:07:25,884 --> 00:07:27,345
they either wanna
201
00:07:28,349 --> 00:07:29,969
completely back backtrack
202
00:07:30,269 --> 00:07:31,089
or suspend,
203
00:07:32,349 --> 00:07:32,849
previous
204
00:07:33,469 --> 00:07:35,550
contracts that this data center has had with
205
00:07:35,550 --> 00:07:37,329
the utility companies in the states.
206
00:07:37,709 --> 00:07:39,469
That, for example, what would happen is some
207
00:07:39,550 --> 00:07:41,125
a lot of the times is the data
208
00:07:41,125 --> 00:07:41,944
center companies
209
00:07:42,644 --> 00:07:45,125
broker a deal with the state, and and
210
00:07:45,125 --> 00:07:46,725
going back to that era of, like, the
211
00:07:46,725 --> 00:07:47,865
rosy tinting classes,
212
00:07:48,485 --> 00:07:50,745
municipalities oftentimes offers discounted
213
00:07:51,204 --> 00:07:53,044
energy rates for the data centers to come
214
00:07:53,044 --> 00:07:54,824
in. So a lot of these municipalities
215
00:07:55,204 --> 00:07:55,704
are
216
00:07:56,189 --> 00:07:59,410
backtracking on those contracts or suspending those contracts
217
00:08:00,670 --> 00:08:03,150
and, and giving them full price again. But
218
00:08:03,150 --> 00:08:04,370
like, if you do that
219
00:08:05,310 --> 00:08:07,949
before the contract ended, they just app talking
220
00:08:07,949 --> 00:08:08,850
about a huge,
221
00:08:10,074 --> 00:08:13,035
price spike that was completely unforeseeable for this
222
00:08:13,035 --> 00:08:15,455
company. So all of a sudden their business
223
00:08:15,514 --> 00:08:17,595
operation is completely upended and you have an
224
00:08:17,595 --> 00:08:18,654
operational costs
225
00:08:19,675 --> 00:08:22,779
multiply by fact, multiple factors. So, like, I
226
00:08:22,779 --> 00:08:24,139
I wanna wanna show a specific number, but
227
00:08:24,139 --> 00:08:26,620
imagine triple or even more. Yeah. Because it's
228
00:08:26,620 --> 00:08:28,959
gonna depend on locality, what that is.
229
00:08:29,420 --> 00:08:32,059
And and what about noise? I know that
230
00:08:32,059 --> 00:08:34,299
data centers are louder than people think they
231
00:08:34,299 --> 00:08:34,634
are.
232
00:08:35,434 --> 00:08:36,815
I'm just very curious.
233
00:08:37,195 --> 00:08:39,274
Especially when you're on the inside of the
234
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data center.
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When when I did the research, that didn't
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really pop up as in the noise,
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like, noise regulations have been prepping up? But
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I know it's part of the conversation. And
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there's been a lot of articles.
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The Washington Post has done a couple specials
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on on on this and data centers and
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then how they're gonna play into local geopolitics.
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And
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noise is a complaint, but so far, as
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far as I've I've researched, I haven't found,
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like, noise regulations being wielded against them.
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Do you see a a broad impact on
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the local community
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if a data center is actually built? Because
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a lot of things you were talking about
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was more esoteric
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in terms of power
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and potential environmental problems, but the actual local
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community, if I if someone builds a data
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center in my backyard,
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how would, how would that negatively impact me
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or maybe positively help me out?
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Yeah, that's, that's a good question. And I
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think,
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one of the main problems and to bring
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that esoteric
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question to to the ground, and it's a
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lot of communities are potentially facing,
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higher electricity rates because of this. Because,
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the grid's strained, and maybe we're not producing
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enough energy in certain localities.
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And because of the power spike that has
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happened due to these data centers,
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a lot of people are saying that because
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it
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there's not, like, a crust subsidy going on,
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it is the residents of a neighborhood who
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might have to pay higher electricity rates.
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And and that's where some people are showing
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concerns aside from, like, what we talked about,
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for example, noise. Mhmm. On the other side
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and this was more of the logic when
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people when municipalities and localities wanted to bring
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data centers in. We're talking about property tax,
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income and and revenue for for municipalities.
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We're talking about economic activity. You you have
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more jobs coming coming in,
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and sometimes it has kind of a ripple
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effect. So you you see in in the
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rest of the area right over here
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in in Virginia, like, you have this tech
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cluster. Like, the rest of the area has
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become this huge tech cluster because sometimes it's
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the companies wanna be close to the data
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centers. Sometimes there's there's some cluster,
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efficiencies that come with that. So you have
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other types of jobs. You have wealthy people
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coming in, that means income tax going up,
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and and and it creates a virtuous cycle.
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So there's definitely pros and cons to having,
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data centers in your in your neighborhood.
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I I would think another pro that probably
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nobody ever talks about is increased
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network connectivity.
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You throw a data center someplace, and it's
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gotta have a lot of optical power, you
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know, a lot of optical stuff coming in.
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So therefore, any of your local CEOs that
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service your community
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have to have better connectivity. So you're gonna
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get better Internet
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even if, like, even if you're still buying
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a 100 gig from your local provider,
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it's still better
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because you're closer to a point where a
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lot of data is coming in and out.
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Is that something that's ever brought up, or
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is that just, like, nobody really thinks about
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it?
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As far as as I found it, as
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I like, as as long as I've read
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about it, I haven't. I think this is
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the value of this type of areas where
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they have a net network engineer that can
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shed light on the
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on on the benefits.
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Yeah. So it's just interesting to me because
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I know that's,
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that's that's a thing. Like, you know, I
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know that even if you have a 100
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gig out way out in a remote location
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or a country house,
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you're just not, you know, the the infrastructure
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and the connectivity, not just the infrastructure in
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terms of amount of bandwidth, but also
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resilience, like, you only have one provider, one
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upstream
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going out. Whereas, if you have a data
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center, like, you know, if Amazon or Google
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or somebody comes out and puts a data
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center, they're gonna have at least 3 upstreams
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that they're gonna bring in. And they're all
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gonna be high high speed upstreams.
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And so that's that's something I would think
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that if I were building a data center,
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it'd be one of my pushbacks. It's like,
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yeah, but, you know, we're we're giving you
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better Internet here. So there are trade offs.
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It's not all one way.
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And now that you mentioned it, like, especially
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in rural areas, it it benefits as we're
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trying to close the digital divide. You know?
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Like Yeah. There are areas that would normally
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do not have broadband access because it's, like,
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just ripping
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the floor and installing all this this fiber
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is extremely expensive. Maybe nonprofitable
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if you don't have a lot of of,
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potential customers. But if you have a data
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center,
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that that's gonna happen, and you're gonna have
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that infrastructure built in. And then eventually, people
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can can get connected to the internet. So
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you might also help some of some of
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these rural areas to get connected and and
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get that infrastructure that was before nonprofitable to
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have.
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Yeah.
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I gotta wonder if
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the hostility that's being created by some policymakers
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also opens up an opportunity for other regions
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of the country or even the state where
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municipalities
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can loosen regulations or make the climate more
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inviting for data centers to be built in
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their location.
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Yeah. Data is largely fungible.
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A lot of people don't realize this. I
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mean, if there there is an eyeball effect.
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Right? There is I wanna be close to
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the eyeballs as a provider. I got that.
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But, nonetheless,
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within some realm, data is fungible,
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particularly AI processing. It can be moved hither
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or thither or yon, and it doesn't really
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hurt my processing
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to move it hither, thither, or yon. So
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00:14:08,379 --> 00:14:10,079
yeah, that's that's another.
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00:14:11,235 --> 00:14:12,754
Are you seeing that kind of thing out
385
00:14:12,754 --> 00:14:14,695
there, Juan? Are you seeing people
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00:14:16,434 --> 00:14:16,934
Well,
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to speak back on what Ned said, I
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think that was that that was a mentality,
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00:14:22,835 --> 00:14:24,215
I I would say earlier
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00:14:24,860 --> 00:14:27,440
in in in this millennium. Like, when everyone
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was fighting to give tax credits or discounted
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00:14:30,940 --> 00:14:33,419
rates, and and still in some ways happening.
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00:14:33,419 --> 00:14:34,879
Some states in in
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are are still in the process of negotiating
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these energy agreements,
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00:14:38,534 --> 00:14:40,075
essentially, like energy futures,
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which is data centers to bring them in,
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especially because as as you were mentioning, Russ,
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00:14:45,254 --> 00:14:47,735
AI is gonna start playing a huge role
400
00:14:47,735 --> 00:14:48,954
in in how we
401
00:14:49,414 --> 00:14:51,575
we we treat data centers in the future.
402
00:14:51,575 --> 00:14:53,414
Because computational power is gonna be
403
00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:56,559
it's essentially gonna be an a a strategic
404
00:14:56,559 --> 00:14:59,440
resource for for the country in general. When
405
00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:01,620
we're fighting, like, the the race
406
00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:04,959
for AI, we wanna be, foreign adversaries like
407
00:15:04,959 --> 00:15:05,459
China,
408
00:15:05,759 --> 00:15:08,159
yadayada, of, like, you want you you wanna
409
00:15:08,159 --> 00:15:10,615
win the AI battle. You need computational power.
410
00:15:10,615 --> 00:15:12,475
You need that back end infrastructure
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00:15:13,014 --> 00:15:15,595
to make these things work, especially when
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other government services are starting to rely on
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00:15:18,295 --> 00:15:20,055
on AI. Something I mentioned is, like, the
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00:15:20,055 --> 00:15:23,815
the 911 line is increasingly relying on on
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00:15:23,815 --> 00:15:25,835
AI to manage calls
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00:15:26,509 --> 00:15:29,090
to to to make, like, proper,
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00:15:29,710 --> 00:15:32,450
like, channeling the calls to, like, different operators
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00:15:32,750 --> 00:15:34,590
that are available or the ones that they
419
00:15:34,590 --> 00:15:36,370
have that seem to have, like,
420
00:15:36,750 --> 00:15:38,669
to being closer to hanging up, for example.
421
00:15:38,669 --> 00:15:40,429
So, like, you have more, like, a seamless
422
00:15:40,429 --> 00:15:40,929
transition.
423
00:15:41,235 --> 00:15:42,995
So if you have this government services relying
424
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on AI,
425
00:15:44,835 --> 00:15:46,514
it it it's you you need data centers
426
00:15:46,514 --> 00:15:48,695
close by. Yeah. You you you need somewhere
427
00:15:48,995 --> 00:15:50,835
to to have this connection, to have this
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00:15:50,835 --> 00:15:52,375
processing power close by.
429
00:15:53,730 --> 00:15:55,090
I'm not sure if I should be happy
430
00:15:55,090 --> 00:15:58,470
or scared that 911's being handled by AI.
431
00:16:01,889 --> 00:16:04,710
There's wow. Talk about trade offs. Okay.
432
00:16:05,970 --> 00:16:07,809
That's that's a little bit of a worry,
433
00:16:07,809 --> 00:16:10,315
but okay. Yeah. So that so that is
434
00:16:10,315 --> 00:16:12,394
true. There are certain services that need to
435
00:16:12,394 --> 00:16:13,134
be local.
436
00:16:13,514 --> 00:16:15,595
But there are other things where data, like
437
00:16:15,595 --> 00:16:17,195
I said before, is fungible. It can be
438
00:16:17,195 --> 00:16:18,095
moved everywhere
439
00:16:18,555 --> 00:16:21,129
or anywhere. It doesn't really matter. Now, it's
440
00:16:21,129 --> 00:16:22,970
interesting to me because you mentioned Reston a
441
00:16:22,970 --> 00:16:24,909
lot, and I know another big area
442
00:16:25,370 --> 00:16:27,709
for data centers is just north of Charlotte.
443
00:16:28,970 --> 00:16:30,409
What's the name of the city that's just
444
00:16:30,409 --> 00:16:32,649
north of Charlotte? I can't remember now. But
445
00:16:32,649 --> 00:16:34,329
it's where I think Lowe's is and some
446
00:16:34,329 --> 00:16:36,745
other people have their headquarters up there, Charlotte,
447
00:16:36,745 --> 00:16:37,485
North Carolina.
448
00:16:37,865 --> 00:16:40,424
And I know there are other big hot
449
00:16:40,424 --> 00:16:40,924
spots.
450
00:16:42,184 --> 00:16:44,264
I would think Vegas because of the dams
451
00:16:44,264 --> 00:16:46,584
and stuff like this. But it does seem
452
00:16:46,584 --> 00:16:48,365
like they gather in spots,
453
00:16:49,460 --> 00:16:51,480
which would seem to make this harder
454
00:16:51,860 --> 00:16:54,980
regulatory wise. Like, it'd be a lot easier
455
00:16:54,980 --> 00:16:56,680
to convince a community,
456
00:16:57,620 --> 00:16:59,620
like where I live, you know, in in
457
00:16:59,620 --> 00:17:00,120
Knoxville,
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00:17:00,420 --> 00:17:02,100
to build 1 or 2 data centers in
459
00:17:02,100 --> 00:17:03,240
the outlying areas
460
00:17:03,975 --> 00:17:05,575
and and then go on and find some
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00:17:05,575 --> 00:17:06,315
other place.
462
00:17:06,855 --> 00:17:08,775
It feels like they do a lot of
463
00:17:08,775 --> 00:17:10,394
trying to build in the same place.
464
00:17:10,855 --> 00:17:12,775
Is that just because of regulatory, or is
465
00:17:12,775 --> 00:17:15,494
that connectivity, or do you know, like, what
466
00:17:15,494 --> 00:17:17,194
what drives that so hard?
467
00:17:17,870 --> 00:17:18,370
I
468
00:17:18,910 --> 00:17:20,910
I haven't found, like at least when I'm
469
00:17:20,910 --> 00:17:23,170
doing this research, I haven't found any any
470
00:17:23,549 --> 00:17:24,610
possible explanation.
471
00:17:24,990 --> 00:17:27,789
But just, you know, spitballing and and especially
472
00:17:27,789 --> 00:17:29,570
seeing other trends, it's for example,
473
00:17:30,029 --> 00:17:31,815
a lot of these data centers are also
474
00:17:31,815 --> 00:17:34,695
because of these regulatory problems or because they
475
00:17:34,695 --> 00:17:36,234
themselves, when a cost,
476
00:17:36,695 --> 00:17:38,394
are trying to produce their own energy.
477
00:17:38,775 --> 00:17:40,934
So part something I mentioned in in this
478
00:17:40,934 --> 00:17:43,815
piece is, for example, Microsoft is spending heavy
479
00:17:43,815 --> 00:17:46,549
amounts of money on solar power for their
480
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data centers. And and even some data centers
481
00:17:48,710 --> 00:17:49,690
in in in
482
00:17:50,789 --> 00:17:52,549
one of the examples I read that even
483
00:17:52,549 --> 00:17:54,869
though I didn't mention in this in this
484
00:17:54,869 --> 00:17:55,369
piece
485
00:17:55,670 --> 00:17:58,150
was when there was a blackout in North
486
00:17:58,150 --> 00:17:59,984
Carolina, it was a data center that was
487
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able to feed back to the grid
488
00:18:02,865 --> 00:18:03,924
and help stabilize
489
00:18:05,025 --> 00:18:08,005
the like, that region's, like, that locality's power
490
00:18:08,144 --> 00:18:10,465
because they had some power stored up from
491
00:18:10,465 --> 00:18:12,465
from their operations. They were feeding back the
492
00:18:12,465 --> 00:18:14,849
grid, and they prevented the blackout from happening.
493
00:18:16,109 --> 00:18:17,730
So I think that cluster
494
00:18:18,190 --> 00:18:20,349
environment with, for example, you have all these
495
00:18:20,349 --> 00:18:23,009
companies investing in their off grid technology
496
00:18:23,389 --> 00:18:26,265
can eventually lead to energy sales between each
497
00:18:26,744 --> 00:18:29,945
other. If someone has some some surplus because
498
00:18:29,945 --> 00:18:30,765
their solar
499
00:18:31,224 --> 00:18:32,664
like, the the sun just hit it the
500
00:18:32,664 --> 00:18:35,065
right angle and and their solar and power
501
00:18:35,065 --> 00:18:36,445
air power meter power
502
00:18:36,904 --> 00:18:39,630
power plant was overpowered and had some ex
503
00:18:39,789 --> 00:18:41,549
excess energy, maybe they can sell it off
504
00:18:41,549 --> 00:18:43,730
immediately, have a spot, like, a spot transaction
505
00:18:44,029 --> 00:18:45,710
to a data center that maybe is not
506
00:18:45,710 --> 00:18:47,869
as bad or maybe just wants energy at
507
00:18:47,869 --> 00:18:48,450
a discount.
508
00:18:48,910 --> 00:18:51,410
And and and I think these clusters eventually
509
00:18:51,549 --> 00:18:53,705
help each other, as as you mentioned as
510
00:18:53,705 --> 00:18:56,045
we mentioned before, sometimes when you have already
511
00:18:56,505 --> 00:18:59,164
broke ground, when you have already laid infrastructure
512
00:18:59,305 --> 00:18:59,965
to handle,
513
00:19:00,744 --> 00:19:03,305
like, connectivity infrastructure to handle all this this
514
00:19:03,305 --> 00:19:03,805
power,
515
00:19:04,585 --> 00:19:07,079
other companies might want to decide to pig
516
00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:09,259
piggyback off that and maybe compensate
517
00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:12,279
the one who undertook the biggest capital investment,
518
00:19:12,279 --> 00:19:14,359
which was the first mover. So I think
519
00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:16,940
that's why sometimes you get this cluster areas
520
00:19:17,159 --> 00:19:19,419
and this cluster economy is going on.
521
00:19:19,914 --> 00:19:22,494
Yeah. I think back to the, the regulations,
522
00:19:23,755 --> 00:19:25,214
and just dealing with
523
00:19:25,515 --> 00:19:26,015
regulatory
524
00:19:26,474 --> 00:19:30,015
and zoning bodies and in various municipalities,
525
00:19:30,795 --> 00:19:31,615
once one
526
00:19:32,170 --> 00:19:34,109
company has successfully navigated
527
00:19:34,570 --> 00:19:35,950
that in an area,
528
00:19:36,250 --> 00:19:38,089
they now know how to do it and
529
00:19:38,089 --> 00:19:40,490
the community has learned how to navigate that
530
00:19:40,490 --> 00:19:42,410
as well. So when the next data center
531
00:19:42,410 --> 00:19:44,589
rolls in and wants to get connected because
532
00:19:44,650 --> 00:19:47,244
the network's already there and some of the
533
00:19:47,244 --> 00:19:49,964
other physical resources there, the policy body is
534
00:19:49,964 --> 00:19:52,204
also there to help them actually get the
535
00:19:52,204 --> 00:19:53,184
process done.
536
00:19:53,804 --> 00:19:54,704
Yeah. Luke.
537
00:19:56,125 --> 00:19:58,464
Yeah. It seems like that. Yeah. So
538
00:19:59,519 --> 00:19:59,600
it
539
00:20:00,799 --> 00:20:02,720
so we also have this thing you're talking
540
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:03,220
about
541
00:20:03,759 --> 00:20:06,080
with people wanting to slow down AI and
542
00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:07,619
people wanting to slow down
543
00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:08,660
the
544
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:09,859
digitization
545
00:20:10,799 --> 00:20:11,539
of society.
546
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,259
And I wonder how much those people realize
547
00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:14,820
that
548
00:20:15,575 --> 00:20:17,815
you might I mean, it's not just online
549
00:20:17,815 --> 00:20:20,474
sales that's going on here. It's supply chain.
550
00:20:20,775 --> 00:20:21,255
It's
551
00:20:21,734 --> 00:20:23,515
everything is being digitized.
552
00:20:23,974 --> 00:20:26,394
You're actually not slowing things down
553
00:20:26,934 --> 00:20:28,875
in the way you think you are
554
00:20:30,295 --> 00:20:30,795
by
555
00:20:31,150 --> 00:20:33,789
trying to stop data centers from being built
556
00:20:33,789 --> 00:20:34,609
in localities.
557
00:20:35,309 --> 00:20:37,329
Like, things are still gonna be digitized.
558
00:20:37,869 --> 00:20:39,730
And even if you do slow it down,
559
00:20:39,869 --> 00:20:41,329
it's not just gonna impact
560
00:20:41,710 --> 00:20:44,769
online sales companies, it's gonna impact your local
561
00:20:45,230 --> 00:20:47,194
hardware store and your local
562
00:20:47,654 --> 00:20:49,835
deli, your locally owned deli.
563
00:20:50,214 --> 00:20:51,414
I I I mean, how much
564
00:20:51,894 --> 00:20:54,214
do people understand those connections? Or is that
565
00:20:54,214 --> 00:20:55,734
like, oh, they're just they just don't have
566
00:20:55,734 --> 00:20:56,474
any idea
567
00:20:56,855 --> 00:20:59,015
that those types of things are interacting in
568
00:20:59,015 --> 00:20:59,674
that way?
569
00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:03,140
Yeah. Yeah. So so with the digrowth movement,
570
00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:03,759
it's,
571
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:06,799
it's a movement that I I struggle sometimes
572
00:21:06,799 --> 00:21:08,559
to wrap my head around because, as you
573
00:21:08,559 --> 00:21:10,180
mentioned, it's incredibly shortsighted.
574
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:13,059
They they think that,
575
00:21:13,434 --> 00:21:15,994
you know, those sacrifices that those small businesses
576
00:21:15,994 --> 00:21:17,295
that are gonna struggle
577
00:21:17,994 --> 00:21:19,455
because of that degrowth,
578
00:21:20,634 --> 00:21:22,955
are kind of casualties in, like, the bigger
579
00:21:22,955 --> 00:21:25,434
picture, that they think that the economy is
580
00:21:25,434 --> 00:21:28,099
producing too much. We're producing too fast, there's
581
00:21:28,099 --> 00:21:29,779
a lot of junk, there's a lot of
582
00:21:29,779 --> 00:21:30,279
waste,
583
00:21:30,579 --> 00:21:32,980
that we're consuming too much energy, their full
584
00:21:32,980 --> 00:21:35,140
emissions are too high, and we're making the
585
00:21:35,140 --> 00:21:36,599
environment worse for everyone.
586
00:21:38,259 --> 00:21:39,940
And this is why I just eventually don't
587
00:21:39,940 --> 00:21:41,480
subscribe to this movement.
588
00:21:43,484 --> 00:21:45,725
It's missing the forest for the trees. It's
589
00:21:45,725 --> 00:21:49,085
missing how, for example, the 911 line, as
590
00:21:49,085 --> 00:21:51,105
in we're bringing it back to the example
591
00:21:51,325 --> 00:21:52,225
of AI.
592
00:21:52,605 --> 00:21:54,845
It's using AI not because it means that
593
00:21:54,845 --> 00:21:56,470
gen AI is going to answer our calls.
594
00:21:56,470 --> 00:21:59,349
It's that AI is doing queue management, for
595
00:21:59,349 --> 00:22:01,210
example, to make that operation smoother
596
00:22:01,829 --> 00:22:04,089
so operators can pick up the call sooner
597
00:22:04,630 --> 00:22:07,450
because we're having nationwide shortages
598
00:22:07,829 --> 00:22:08,490
of 911
599
00:22:09,434 --> 00:22:11,994
operators. My area in DEC DC is struggling
600
00:22:11,994 --> 00:22:15,115
because there's not enough trained 911 operators to
601
00:22:15,115 --> 00:22:16,575
answer the calls on time.
602
00:22:17,194 --> 00:22:17,694
So
603
00:22:18,315 --> 00:22:21,934
when you're causing this degrowth, when you're attacking
604
00:22:22,075 --> 00:22:24,909
AI and these AI systems are being ingrained
605
00:22:24,909 --> 00:22:26,289
into government services
606
00:22:26,589 --> 00:22:29,009
or just lifesaving services in general,
607
00:22:29,630 --> 00:22:31,409
those are the lives you're sacrificing.
608
00:22:31,789 --> 00:22:33,549
So you're not making the world a better
609
00:22:33,549 --> 00:22:34,049
place.
610
00:22:34,909 --> 00:22:37,525
You're objectively making it worse, especially because you
611
00:22:37,525 --> 00:22:38,664
have so many areas
612
00:22:39,045 --> 00:22:41,785
that, right now, have labor shortages where labor
613
00:22:42,085 --> 00:22:43,545
is either not there,
614
00:22:44,005 --> 00:22:46,644
the skilled workers are not there, or they're
615
00:22:46,644 --> 00:22:48,965
just not willing to work in these areas
616
00:22:48,965 --> 00:22:50,880
because they find better salaries somewhere.
617
00:22:51,279 --> 00:22:53,039
So you need AI to fill in those
618
00:22:53,039 --> 00:22:53,539
voids,
619
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:54,740
so
620
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:56,180
so you're just
621
00:22:56,799 --> 00:22:59,279
sacrificing a lot of of services that might
622
00:22:59,279 --> 00:23:01,759
be essential, like, for example, a 911 line.
623
00:23:01,759 --> 00:23:04,400
Yeah. Well, you're also hurting local. Like, even
624
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,005
a little local hardware store might be set
625
00:23:07,005 --> 00:23:09,325
up so they know what to buy at
626
00:23:09,325 --> 00:23:10,065
what time,
627
00:23:10,445 --> 00:23:12,445
you know, the right time of season, and
628
00:23:12,445 --> 00:23:14,525
oh, well, look at spring. How many hoses
629
00:23:14,525 --> 00:23:16,945
do I need to buy to handle this?
630
00:23:17,005 --> 00:23:19,244
How many how many sprayers do I need
631
00:23:19,244 --> 00:23:21,420
to buy? How many nails? All that stuff
632
00:23:21,580 --> 00:23:23,920
is all grounded in data analytics.
633
00:23:24,619 --> 00:23:27,340
And really, you're not helping the local hardware
634
00:23:27,340 --> 00:23:27,840
store
635
00:23:28,220 --> 00:23:30,140
by putting them in a position where they
636
00:23:30,140 --> 00:23:32,880
can't get that data so that their inventory
637
00:23:33,100 --> 00:23:35,920
matches what's needed in the local area.
638
00:23:36,265 --> 00:23:38,025
I just that that's that's really kind of
639
00:23:38,025 --> 00:23:40,265
a it's kind of a crazy argument to
640
00:23:40,265 --> 00:23:43,085
me from that perspective. So yeah. Another
641
00:23:43,544 --> 00:23:45,804
kind of direction this can go is
642
00:23:46,105 --> 00:23:48,904
how are data center operators pushing back? For
643
00:23:48,904 --> 00:23:51,724
instance, recently, I saw that Microsoft.
644
00:23:52,289 --> 00:23:54,210
Now after the Three Mile Island thing, a
645
00:23:54,210 --> 00:23:56,150
lot of people think the Three Mile Island
646
00:23:56,610 --> 00:23:57,670
plant went away,
647
00:23:58,289 --> 00:24:00,529
and it didn't. It's been producing electricity all
648
00:24:00,529 --> 00:24:01,269
these years.
649
00:24:01,809 --> 00:24:02,309
And
650
00:24:03,009 --> 00:24:05,809
now Microsoft has talked about refurbishing it or
651
00:24:05,809 --> 00:24:08,345
is putting money into refurbishing it and either
652
00:24:08,345 --> 00:24:10,825
partnering with another company or buying it outright
653
00:24:10,825 --> 00:24:12,765
or something, I don't know all the details,
654
00:24:13,384 --> 00:24:15,705
to use it for data center power. So,
655
00:24:15,705 --> 00:24:17,545
like, is this one of those pushbacks we're
656
00:24:17,545 --> 00:24:19,785
seeing? It's like people are going out and
657
00:24:19,785 --> 00:24:22,710
saying, fine. You don't want me to get
658
00:24:22,710 --> 00:24:23,930
power off your grid.
659
00:24:24,230 --> 00:24:25,370
I'm just gonna go
660
00:24:25,830 --> 00:24:27,910
do it myself. Like, is that is that
661
00:24:27,910 --> 00:24:30,630
a pushback we're starting to see? Yeah. I
662
00:24:30,630 --> 00:24:32,390
mean, for the first pushback they do is,
663
00:24:32,390 --> 00:24:33,884
you know, they try to fend off fend
664
00:24:33,884 --> 00:24:36,384
off this loss. I think, first
665
00:24:36,684 --> 00:24:38,365
of all first of all, they're trying to
666
00:24:38,365 --> 00:24:40,525
mitigate that harm, in any way that they
667
00:24:40,525 --> 00:24:42,705
can. But, also, as you mentioned,
668
00:24:43,724 --> 00:24:46,480
they they're taking advantage of what I've seen,
669
00:24:46,619 --> 00:24:48,539
these other groups that is kind of the
670
00:24:48,539 --> 00:24:51,019
counter the counter phase of the degrowth movement
671
00:24:51,019 --> 00:24:52,400
is the abundance movement
672
00:24:52,700 --> 00:24:54,619
of, like, we need more energy for everything.
673
00:24:54,619 --> 00:24:55,680
Like, there's no
674
00:24:56,700 --> 00:24:58,940
developed and this is, like, I think, a
675
00:24:58,940 --> 00:25:01,359
lot of evidence shows the right it's that
676
00:25:01,424 --> 00:25:03,765
there's no developed country that does not,
677
00:25:04,305 --> 00:25:05,924
have a high energy demand.
678
00:25:06,545 --> 00:25:07,605
That is a reality.
679
00:25:08,305 --> 00:25:09,985
So what what can we do about it?
680
00:25:09,985 --> 00:25:12,325
We can just make more and, hopefully, more
681
00:25:13,424 --> 00:25:14,644
emission free energy
682
00:25:14,970 --> 00:25:17,529
for cheap. So just try to create as
683
00:25:17,529 --> 00:25:20,109
much energy as possible. So that means energy
684
00:25:20,169 --> 00:25:22,809
is cheap, and, hopefully, that energy is also
685
00:25:22,809 --> 00:25:24,990
clean. One of the one of the options,
686
00:25:25,049 --> 00:25:27,210
nuclear, as we've seen, and as we've seen
687
00:25:27,210 --> 00:25:28,429
this, like, nuclear resurgence
688
00:25:29,005 --> 00:25:30,924
movement that people wanna push for, like, their
689
00:25:30,924 --> 00:25:31,904
reopening nuclear
690
00:25:32,285 --> 00:25:34,605
nuclear sites. We see countries like France doing
691
00:25:34,605 --> 00:25:35,424
fairly well,
692
00:25:36,125 --> 00:25:38,944
in with with a nuclear based grid, especially
693
00:25:39,085 --> 00:25:42,204
as it might help a cleaner transition toward
694
00:25:42,204 --> 00:25:43,265
completely renewables,
695
00:25:43,909 --> 00:25:45,450
like like solar and wind.
696
00:25:46,390 --> 00:25:49,269
As I mentioned, these companies themselves are investing
697
00:25:49,269 --> 00:25:52,569
in in zero emission energy production by themselves.
698
00:25:52,950 --> 00:25:55,929
They are leveraging solar panels in in
699
00:25:56,230 --> 00:25:56,970
in the
700
00:25:57,565 --> 00:25:58,865
actual physical buildings.
701
00:25:59,164 --> 00:26:01,404
They're creating solar farms close to their data
702
00:26:01,404 --> 00:26:04,065
centers too, and just trying to leverage,
703
00:26:05,565 --> 00:26:07,724
an energy of a strategy of creating as
704
00:26:07,724 --> 00:26:09,565
much energy as possible. As you mentioned, if
705
00:26:09,565 --> 00:26:10,845
you do not don't let us go on
706
00:26:10,845 --> 00:26:13,289
the on the grid, well maybe create a
707
00:26:13,309 --> 00:26:15,230
great own grid and, hopefully, in a way
708
00:26:15,230 --> 00:26:16,670
that it's not going to be a political
709
00:26:16,670 --> 00:26:19,309
liability. Because if they go with gas, if
710
00:26:19,309 --> 00:26:19,970
they go
711
00:26:20,350 --> 00:26:21,009
with coal
712
00:26:21,630 --> 00:26:22,130
or
713
00:26:22,430 --> 00:26:24,350
oil, they're for sure going to have some
714
00:26:24,350 --> 00:26:25,330
pushback. So,
715
00:26:25,785 --> 00:26:27,865
that's usually what we we're seeing, these trends
716
00:26:27,865 --> 00:26:29,805
of, like, trying to go for this
717
00:26:30,105 --> 00:26:32,765
green energy or renewable energy or at least
718
00:26:33,144 --> 00:26:34,765
nuclear, which is less harmful.
719
00:26:35,305 --> 00:26:37,384
I'm I'm thinking about some of the ways
720
00:26:37,384 --> 00:26:37,884
that
721
00:26:38,769 --> 00:26:42,369
the next generation of chips is specifically focused
722
00:26:42,369 --> 00:26:43,109
on reducing
723
00:26:43,410 --> 00:26:44,630
the energy footprint
724
00:26:45,089 --> 00:26:47,730
for data centers or making more efficient use
725
00:26:47,730 --> 00:26:49,190
of existing data centers.
726
00:26:49,730 --> 00:26:51,429
But the research and the fabrication
727
00:26:52,184 --> 00:26:54,264
facilities that are required to make that next
728
00:26:54,264 --> 00:26:56,764
generation of chips also require construction
729
00:26:57,464 --> 00:26:59,325
and a certain amount of power
730
00:26:59,625 --> 00:27:02,684
and and processing and raw materials. So
731
00:27:02,984 --> 00:27:04,664
we if we want to get to a
732
00:27:04,664 --> 00:27:05,404
more efficient
733
00:27:06,250 --> 00:27:08,890
data center, we have to allow the chip
734
00:27:08,890 --> 00:27:11,390
industry to mature and grow as well.
735
00:27:11,929 --> 00:27:14,009
Right. We need to build to be able
736
00:27:14,009 --> 00:27:16,569
to build cheaper. We need to build expensive
737
00:27:16,569 --> 00:27:18,589
stuff to be able to build cheaper stuff.
738
00:27:18,809 --> 00:27:20,029
Well, yeah. And I think
739
00:27:21,545 --> 00:27:24,424
think think about how much less power some
740
00:27:24,424 --> 00:27:27,164
devices require now than they did
741
00:27:27,785 --> 00:27:28,765
10 years ago.
742
00:27:29,065 --> 00:27:29,724
You know,
743
00:27:30,424 --> 00:27:32,424
consider what my phone can do, the amount
744
00:27:32,424 --> 00:27:34,825
of processing power that's in my phone based
745
00:27:34,825 --> 00:27:37,349
off the amount of battery it actually requires
746
00:27:37,490 --> 00:27:39,890
to get that work done. And it's gotta
747
00:27:39,890 --> 00:27:41,730
be an order of magnitude lower than it
748
00:27:41,730 --> 00:27:44,210
was 10 years ago for the same amount
749
00:27:44,210 --> 00:27:46,849
of processing power. Right? So if we take
750
00:27:46,849 --> 00:27:47,589
that same
751
00:27:48,375 --> 00:27:50,295
outlook and say we can do that again
752
00:27:50,295 --> 00:27:51,914
in 10 or less years,
753
00:27:52,375 --> 00:27:53,195
that's cutting
754
00:27:53,654 --> 00:27:55,095
the amount of power that some of these
755
00:27:55,095 --> 00:27:57,654
data centers are requiring or the density of
756
00:27:57,654 --> 00:27:58,954
computing the data centers
757
00:27:59,494 --> 00:28:02,390
being vastly increased while taking less power over
758
00:28:02,390 --> 00:28:03,529
the next 10 years.
759
00:28:03,830 --> 00:28:05,190
I'm not saying the problem is gonna sort
760
00:28:05,190 --> 00:28:08,070
itself out, but I I do think that
761
00:28:08,070 --> 00:28:09,910
the march of technology is going to make
762
00:28:09,910 --> 00:28:10,890
us more efficient
763
00:28:11,269 --> 00:28:12,410
in our data centers,
764
00:28:13,865 --> 00:28:16,664
while also still requiring some expansion. No. Yeah.
765
00:28:16,664 --> 00:28:18,184
So I was gonna say, like, I I'm
766
00:28:18,184 --> 00:28:19,465
not a betting man, but I would never
767
00:28:19,465 --> 00:28:21,484
bet against Moore's Law. And and
768
00:28:22,265 --> 00:28:24,045
and as you mentioned, Ned, I think
769
00:28:24,585 --> 00:28:26,009
that that is some of the trade offs,
770
00:28:26,089 --> 00:28:26,990
especially in this
771
00:28:27,529 --> 00:28:29,130
or wick or some people call it wicked
772
00:28:29,130 --> 00:28:31,150
systems. So, like, sometimes you need to,
773
00:28:31,609 --> 00:28:33,130
let's just say, invest money to make money.
774
00:28:33,130 --> 00:28:35,369
In this case, invest energy to save energy.
775
00:28:35,609 --> 00:28:37,210
You you gotta choose all this r and
776
00:28:37,210 --> 00:28:40,269
d. That eventually pays off in that everyone
777
00:28:40,894 --> 00:28:42,514
is consuming less individually.
778
00:28:43,934 --> 00:28:45,075
And, eventually,
779
00:28:46,095 --> 00:28:48,575
if all consumer grade electronics are more efficient,
780
00:28:48,575 --> 00:28:50,654
you eventually get to orders of magnitude of
781
00:28:50,654 --> 00:28:53,294
savings. And it's often unpredictable where the savings
782
00:28:53,294 --> 00:28:55,375
are gonna come from. But I I think
783
00:28:55,375 --> 00:28:56,034
it's something
784
00:28:56,410 --> 00:28:58,329
life has has started us in the last
785
00:28:58,329 --> 00:28:59,630
50 years is that
786
00:28:59,930 --> 00:29:01,470
computing power, it's
787
00:29:02,170 --> 00:29:03,930
I I I just don't see when it
788
00:29:03,930 --> 00:29:06,089
stops. It keeps it keeps proving itself right.
789
00:29:06,089 --> 00:29:08,329
Yeah. Yeah. It it is interesting because, I
790
00:29:08,329 --> 00:29:09,950
mean, you do come to a point,
791
00:29:10,775 --> 00:29:12,534
and we may hit this point before we
792
00:29:12,534 --> 00:29:13,595
hit anything else,
793
00:29:13,974 --> 00:29:16,615
where AI has consumed so much information that
794
00:29:16,615 --> 00:29:18,694
there's just not more information that's fresh and
795
00:29:18,694 --> 00:29:19,194
new
796
00:29:19,494 --> 00:29:20,154
to consume.
797
00:29:20,615 --> 00:29:23,174
Right? We're already running into situations where AI
798
00:29:23,174 --> 00:29:26,029
is feeding itself off of other AI output
799
00:29:26,329 --> 00:29:28,650
and causing problems in the way it builds
800
00:29:28,650 --> 00:29:29,150
things.
801
00:29:29,609 --> 00:29:31,130
And there's only so many sensors you can
802
00:29:31,130 --> 00:29:32,650
put in and stuff like that. I don't
803
00:29:32,650 --> 00:29:34,730
know where we get to that point. But
804
00:29:34,730 --> 00:29:37,529
right now, Kai Fu Lee's virtuous cycle, as
805
00:29:37,529 --> 00:29:38,785
he calls it, I don't think it's really
806
00:29:38,785 --> 00:29:41,605
virtuous, but that's what he calls it, and,
807
00:29:42,464 --> 00:29:45,105
Moore's law and then Metcalfe's law are all
808
00:29:45,105 --> 00:29:46,244
still 3 interacting
809
00:29:46,865 --> 00:29:48,484
in a way that's still producing
810
00:29:49,184 --> 00:29:50,404
very high growth
811
00:29:50,865 --> 00:29:51,765
very rapidly.
812
00:29:52,359 --> 00:29:52,859
And
813
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:55,799
there's no definite way to know there's gonna
814
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:58,359
this is gonna end, right? There's no there's
815
00:29:58,359 --> 00:30:00,059
no end in sight at this point.
816
00:30:00,599 --> 00:30:02,519
So these are definitely problems we need to
817
00:30:02,519 --> 00:30:04,679
deal with and figure out. 1, where can
818
00:30:04,679 --> 00:30:06,615
people find you? I know I found this
819
00:30:06,775 --> 00:30:08,954
article on protecting the tax taxpayer.
820
00:30:09,335 --> 00:30:10,775
You know, there do you write any other
821
00:30:10,775 --> 00:30:12,615
place than there? Is there, like, a regular
822
00:30:12,615 --> 00:30:14,855
column or anything that you write about these
823
00:30:14,855 --> 00:30:16,694
issues? So my my work is at the
824
00:30:16,694 --> 00:30:19,815
Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a senior policy analyst. I
825
00:30:19,815 --> 00:30:21,575
I I I pitch a lot of places.
826
00:30:21,575 --> 00:30:23,639
I don't have, like, a a only one
827
00:30:23,639 --> 00:30:25,159
place. So if anyone wants to reach out
828
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:26,839
Okay. You can reach out to my email,
829
00:30:26,839 --> 00:30:27,899
which is just juan@protecting
830
00:30:29,639 --> 00:30:30,139
taxpayers.org,
831
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,339
or or Okay. Also on on twitter/x.
832
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:35,259
That's juanmglondono,
833
00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:37,500
with an r at the end.
834
00:30:38,484 --> 00:30:41,044
Awesome. Great. Ned, where can people find you
835
00:30:41,044 --> 00:30:42,804
if they want to? You can find all
836
00:30:42,804 --> 00:30:44,424
the things that I do at nedinthecloud.com.
837
00:30:45,605 --> 00:30:47,865
Just go there. There's links to everything else.
838
00:30:48,325 --> 00:30:50,164
That's awesome. That's the way I use rule
839
00:30:50,164 --> 00:30:52,690
11 now. It's just mostly as a way
840
00:30:52,690 --> 00:30:54,369
to find me, find other things that I
841
00:30:54,369 --> 00:30:56,450
do. Alright. Well, I'm Russ White. You can
842
00:30:56,450 --> 00:30:57,830
find me here at the hedge at rule11.techrule11academy.
843
00:30:59,809 --> 00:31:02,130
I'm actually on x a little more often
844
00:31:02,130 --> 00:31:04,609
now, not still not tons. But,
845
00:31:06,224 --> 00:31:08,545
again, as always, we know that we live
846
00:31:08,545 --> 00:31:10,545
in an attention based economy, and we thank
847
00:31:10,545 --> 00:31:12,144
you for your time listening all the way
848
00:31:12,144 --> 00:31:13,825
to the bitter end of this episode of
849
00:31:13,825 --> 00:31:16,065
The Hedge. And we will catch you next
850
00:31:16,065 --> 00:31:16,565
time.
