1:01

So we are here and I want

1:03

to welcome Bill Bubenicek from

1:06

Generate Capital here to

1:08

our studios , into your

1:10

headphones or into your cars or

1:12

wherever you're listening to this , and

1:16

before we get into Bill's origin

1:18

story , so just to kind of set the stage

1:20

here . So Bill and I know

1:22

each other . We've done some work in the past . Stage here

1:25

. So Bill and I know each other . We've done

1:27

some work in the past . He is a resident , as I am

1:29

, in Cape Cod , assachusetts , although

1:31

he lives there full time

1:34

, so we can talk about that , but

1:41

Bill's had an interesting background in power and we were . You know , before we hit the record

1:43

button . You know , if you look at Brad Smith's talk at MWC

1:46

on AI economy , which I thought was a really

1:48

good one to go look up , he talked about

1:50

the kind of the foundations

1:52

of the AI economy and there's kind of two pieces

1:55

to the foundation One is connectivity and

1:57

the other is power , and power as

1:59

in electricity . And so

2:02

quite often when you get in discussions around edge

2:04

computing , the

2:06

issue of power , power cost , I mean , certainly

2:08

there's power discussions . When you get into low power

2:10

systems that are , you know , battery

2:12

powered , but even you know

2:14

, data centers , edge data centers , things like

2:16

that , there's just this , you

2:19

know , kind of an existential I wouldn't say crisis

2:21

, but you know , an existential challenge

2:23

about power . And so , bill

2:25

, I want to welcome you to the show to talk about

2:27

this stuff . Why don't you give folks

2:30

kind of your intro , your origin story

2:32

, let people know who you are ?

2:33

Sure , thanks for having me Pete . Yeah

2:36

, so I started out really in GSM

2:39

network buildouts , which in other words

2:41

cell phone , which in other words cell

2:43

phone infrastructure , primarily

2:46

in emerging markets kind of where I started

2:48

. So I spent a lot of time in

2:50

the Middle East , africa , parts of Latin America

2:53

, and while doing those

2:55

build outs and selling the equipment there I

3:05

came across the cell towers that were in most of those markets running on diesel generators

3:07

24-7 . And it was around 2006 , 2007

3:09

, and we called it clean tech then . But

3:12

the clean tech thing was kind of happening

3:15

and I got into

3:17

that and I was pretty excited

3:19

about a more sustainable energy

3:22

future and I thought , well , here's a good

3:24

place to start already , already in the cell

3:26

tower business , and they're all running on diesel generators

3:28

24 seven . So what can we do

3:31

? So we implemented

3:33

some of the first we called hybrid systems

3:35

, which is just battery cycling with generator

3:37

. Eventually that turned into battery plus solar

3:39

plus generator and

3:42

I launched a company called clean power

3:44

Systems in 2010 , co-founded

3:47

that and brought those solutions

3:50

into the African continent . Mostly

3:52

Uganda , Kenya and

3:55

Ghana were our primary markets . And

3:58

then , sort of fast forward , I got

4:00

a crash course in project finance when

4:02

I realized , hey , there might be a better way , as

4:04

opposed to selling these things on a

4:06

CapEx basis , right , can we sell it as a service

4:08

? And so you know , I

4:11

don't have a proper finance

4:13

or analyst background or anything like that , so it was

4:15

really learning through osmosis and we

4:17

launched our next company then that was focused on

4:19

converting our solutions

4:21

into a as a service model or

4:23

like an SQL model , and so

4:25

we did that in East Africa

4:27

and in India and

4:30

that was a lot of fun , a lot of good

4:32

experience , but mostly an off grid environment

4:35

, right . So my , my power experience

4:38

started started kind of , you know , in the off

4:40

grid sector or the call it

4:42

grid sector , where it was

4:44

like really intermittent power

4:46

. So

4:49

, anyway , got a lot of good experience

4:51

there . In fact , that's where I first met Jigar

4:53

Shah , who's a co-founder of Generate . We

4:56

tried to do a few deals in Uganda at the time

4:58

and kind of kicked around a lot of ideas

5:01

and he had a lot of kind of good advice for me

5:03

as an entrepreneur trying to make

5:05

it in this space . And when

5:08

I finally came back to the States and was

5:10

kind of looking at a change , say like , how do

5:12

I make a much bigger , broader

5:15

impact , right , like this was a great business and

5:17

we a lot of lessons learned . But it's

5:19

really hard operating in these

5:21

other markets , operating

5:28

in these other markets . And I came back and I was in Boston at the time and reached out to Jigar

5:30

, amongst others , and he called me back I think

5:32

within 30 seconds of the email and

5:35

said hey

5:37

, what's your thesis for

5:39

all things related to digital and kind of how

5:41

that intersects with energy ? And

5:44

I said , well , I got to work on that thesis

5:46

, right , it's been a while . I've got the off-grid side

5:48

, but let me have a look . And he

5:51

kind of pitched me on Generate and

5:53

what they were doing and really found

5:56

that interesting and exciting

5:58

. And so I kind of started

6:00

looking around like what's the thesis here ? What's

6:03

the play more in the US , or it could be Europe as well ? What's the thesis

6:05

here ? Like , what's the play more in the US , or it could be Europe as well , but in

6:07

the traditional grid markets . And

6:10

I ended up spending some

6:12

time I had a lot of time with the

6:14

IFC and World Bank when I was in my previous

6:16

life and so I called up my friends

6:19

and colleagues everywhere . I was trying to kind of looking around

6:21

like where's the right thesis ? And credit

6:24

to my old friend , eric Crabtree at

6:26

the IFC , who said you've got to look at data

6:28

centers , right . Everything is moving . You're in

6:30

the cell tower . We call that ICT sector

6:33

. I think TMT was another term they used

6:35

in the World Bank . But anyway , he says look

6:38

towards data centers , right . And so

6:40

I already kind of brushed into the data

6:42

center sector . I had experience with

6:44

fiber just because I was already in the

6:46

telco sector

6:49

and all those things converge so

6:51

I started kind of calling it digital infrastructure

6:54

. That term started happening around . That point

6:56

, after

7:05

a bunch of work and really looking into data centers , was there's going to be a convergence

7:08

or an inflection point , let's say , where the grid is simply unable

7:10

to keep up with the power demands of

7:12

the digital infrastructure sector . Right

7:14

, at the end of the day , that was the thesis

7:16

at its core that I brought to Generate

7:18

in 2018 , 2019 . And

7:22

they said let's give you

7:24

a chance , right , welcome

7:28

aboard . And I came on as a consultant under what they called a developer in residence

7:30

program at the time and I think that's

7:32

just maybe

7:35

a position that Jigar had invented . That said hey , you're

7:37

an entrepreneur , developer , and we don't really

7:39

know what label to put on you because you're not

7:41

a finance person , but can you come

7:43

in and kind of try to put deals together

7:45

, etc . And it really ended

7:47

up being , I guess , what you call an origination role

7:49

. I later learned in finance that's the

7:51

term right , go out and originate deals

7:53

and bring them through um . So

7:56

again , the thesis was fundamentally

7:59

on power , right , and the

8:01

lack of power , let's say , the lack of supply

8:04

or the ability of the grid to keep up with the

8:07

demand from the digital side . And

8:11

I guess it was last year 2022

8:14

, 2023 , when the AI boom

8:16

took off , right . And then suddenly the

8:18

thesis was like right now Before

8:21

that it was kind of in the future let's prepare , let's

8:23

think about what we can do to solve this . But all

8:26

of a sudden the explosion happened and here

8:28

we are now with , I think , everyone talking

8:30

about this .

8:32

Yeah .

8:32

Power is the problem .

8:35

Yeah , I mean , if you look at the latest , like the NVIDIA

8:37

GTC announcements with Blackwell

8:39

, you know , I mean each one of those chips is , you know

8:42

, peaks at about 1200 Watts , and

8:45

so you start to get a building full of those things

8:47

you know and you know . Just

8:53

as a comparison , I mean you have um , think about like packet core switching

8:56

and things like that in sort of the telco world you know , running on Intel , you

8:58

know Xeons and stuff , and it's all good , but it's not

9:00

, uh , it's not pushing the power envelope

9:02

as much as you would if you're

9:04

stuffing that field with , you know , nvidia

9:07

H200s or Blackwells . I mean that's a whole

9:09

other order of magnitude , frankly . Oh

9:11

yeah , more power , right , and

9:13

you know , people who read the newspaper know

9:16

that . You know just , public grids in general

9:19

are struggling with keeping up with

9:21

power requirements

9:23

right in Texas and other places and rolling

9:26

brownouts . So you start adding in

9:28

these data centers filled

9:30

with AI chips and then all of a sudden

9:32

there's a gap . Maybe not all of a sudden

9:34

, but I think it's kind of an obvious , you know

9:36

gap that people are trying to fill . So that's , I

9:39

think you know . Like you said , it

9:41

started out as it's

9:44

a good thesis and now it's really becoming a

9:46

reality , because the demand for AI workloads

9:48

is so high and

9:51

folks are struggling . So how are hyperscalers

9:53

and other folks figuring this out

9:55

? I mean , how are they trying to close the gap between

9:58

, you know , ai factories

10:00

and electricity

10:02

?

10:04

Yeah , so , yeah , so

10:06

, a few different ways , and

10:09

this was kind of core to the thesis as well

10:11

. It's like , all right , there's a thesis , great , but what's

10:13

going to happen , right , as a result of this Play this

10:15

forward ? And

10:17

the theory was well , if

10:20

power is so important as we know , it is to

10:22

the growth of digital , and we're really talking

10:24

about , when you say hyperscalers , we're talking about the biggest

10:27

of the big companies in the world , the biggest

10:29

balance sheets , etc . Are

10:31

they really going to let the grid's inability

10:34

to keep up stop them from deploying

10:36

? Probably not . I don't think

10:38

so . Let my bet with you know , I

11:01

know so . So the way I saw it was well , they're going to figure out . Either they're going

11:03

to start building their own power plants or they're going to figure out how to maybe

11:05

co-locate next to existing power power plants , to unlock capacity that might otherwise not

11:07

be available due to , you know , transmission , distribution issues or what have you

11:09

Right ? And so I think that those two themes kind of come out of this . It's going to be one of

11:11

one of those two , and

11:13

if you really want to fast forward long term , I think there's a really good chance that the digital

11:16

infrastructure folks are going to become energy companies themselves out

11:19

of necessity , right , there's like a forcing function

11:21

here and again we're going to bet on somebody

11:23

. Is

11:27

it going to be that highly innovative , like largest companies in the world , that's

11:29

going to do that , or is it going to be the kind of utilities that are going to

11:31

figure out how to suddenly get super innovative

11:33

and keep up ? Both are going

11:36

to happen in a way , but I think my money is on

11:38

the big guys here .

11:39

Well , so like , instead of Microsoft having an

11:41

Xbox subsidiary that's doing gaming

11:43

, maybe they'll have a power subsidiary . Then

11:46

you buy your power . It's part of your

11:48

M365 subscription , you know .

11:51

I think something like that is already

11:54

in the works . I mean , look at the press AWS

11:57

just announced recently the deal

11:59

with the nuclear facility in Pennsylvania

12:01

, for example , right , right . So

12:04

we're kind of already seeing things moving . There's

12:07

plenty of different data centers that

12:09

have adopted on-site power , like

12:11

Bloom Energy , fuel cell

12:13

technology , right

12:16

. So I think we're seeing both

12:18

of those play out now in real time

12:20

. It's starting to actually happen and

12:23

I think we're going to see more and more of that , right . Yeah

12:25

it's really interesting .

12:27

It's almost like when Apple , you know , years ago Apple

12:31

got big investments in like mining companies

12:33

to get the rare metals that they needed to

12:35

build iPhones and iPads

12:37

right . They just kind of went straight in

12:40

the supply chain and , you

12:42

know , you're seeing maybe something similar like that

12:44

with power and some of these hyperscalers .

12:46

Yeah , I would . And , by the way , are you talking supply

12:48

chain ? I would love to see them get into

12:51

the transformer supply chain right

12:53

, which is is another

12:55

major problem in bottleneck .

12:57

Yeah , that's true , that's the . Those

12:59

are the um , the boxes

13:01

that you see on the poles right that go from

13:03

the basically transmit .

13:07

Yeah , exactly , it makes the voltage usable for

13:09

the user .

13:10

Yeah , yeah , and there's a whole supply chain

13:12

issue around transformers and that's one of

13:14

the big shortages . I know Elon Musk has talked about

13:16

that too . Yeah . It's

13:19

one thing to generate the power , then you've got to move the

13:21

power through the grid . One thing to

13:23

generate the power , then you got to move the power

13:25

through the grid . And you know maybe

13:29

people don't realize this a lot of the infrastructure that you see , especially in the US , is 50 or

13:31

60 years old , right these transformers and these power lines , and there's huge

13:33

inefficiency . So you may be dropping , you

13:35

know , a third or more of the power

13:38

by the time it goes from the generator

13:40

, whatever it is to , to

13:42

your plug . You know you could be losing a huge

13:45

percentage of power just through those

13:47

transmission lines too , which is not good . In

13:50

a world where there isn't enough power , the last thing you

13:52

want to do is kind of squander

13:54

it on kind of these inefficient old

13:57

transmission lines , right . So that's

13:59

another challenge .

14:01

It's another one . There's no doubt about it , right , but

14:03

again right . Who better to step

14:05

in , perhaps , and make a difference

14:07

here ? You know , when

14:09

it comes to the players that could do this

14:11

, again , we're talking about the biggest

14:13

balance sheets in the world .

14:15

Yeah , yeah , no , that's really interesting , yeah

14:18

, and so like and you talked a little

14:20

about nuclear , I mean . So typically

14:22

it's interesting . The other paradox

14:24

I guess with power is there's not enough power to

14:26

power kind of AI factories . So that's the

14:29

working hypothesis . I think it's probably pretty

14:31

well established at this point . And

14:33

at the same time there's also a move to

14:35

move to more greener and renewable

14:38

energy right . So wind and

14:40

solar and things like that . So

14:44

you have , these things are almost , I wouldn't say competing , but they are sort

14:46

of both pulling in slightly different directions , right

14:48

, yeah .

14:51

Yeah , I think again

14:54

you're going with the AWS , is the

14:57

Microsoft's , the Google's videos ? These guys

14:59

are all making really big commitments

15:01

to clean energy , right

15:04

, and I mean , yeah , across the board . And you know , making really big commitments to clean energy , is that right ? Yeah , that's the

15:06

board and , regardless of that acronym

15:08

, like they're making commitments

15:10

to a more sustainable future

15:12

and they have the balance

15:15

sheet to actually do it , to

15:17

sort of push innovation forward and also

15:20

be the anchor customer , let's say , on

15:22

cleaner , more sustainable

15:25

builds for power

15:27

plants , right . So I think we're

15:30

already aligned in that sense Right , in

15:32

that they want the cleanest power . However

15:35

, the lack of power altogether

15:37

right now kind of puts them in a conundrum too . Right

15:40

? Hey , if there's power available already here at

15:42

this gas plant , are they going to take it ? Do

15:44

right , hey , if there's power available already here at this gas

15:46

plant , are they going to take it ? Or are they going to not spin up

15:48

their latest data center and sort of wait for a source ? I don't know how

15:50

that's going to play out . What ? I can say , is

15:53

that where we sit ? Certainly , and

15:55

what I represent on the Generate side is we are representing

15:57

for the cleanest sources that

16:00

are financeable and sustainable

16:02

today , the degree

16:04

to which we can influence the market

16:06

towards more sustainable . We're

16:08

going to do that , but I think you already

16:11

largely have a pretty big commitment

16:13

from everybody there to

16:15

do that anyway . So I think , you're kind

16:17

of already well aligned in that sense .

16:19

Yeah , well , yeah , and

16:21

the demand for power , and then that turning into

16:24

demand for investments in more green

16:26

power solutions is beneficial for everybody

16:28

. So , and then the other trend that I've

16:30

seen too is that you

16:32

know that used to be where you'd plop a data center

16:34

area of compute out in

16:37

, you know , near a kind of a higher

16:39

density population area or whatever , to

16:41

service that area , density

16:45

population area or whatever to service that area , and then the power would be somewhere way out somewhere

16:47

else . But now we're seeing you mentioned like , so almost like the co-location

16:49

of compute and power

16:51

generation , and so that's

16:54

a different kind of you . Look at a map of any country

16:56

where their power stations are , where

16:59

the power is being generated is kind of probably where the compute

17:01

is going to be happening , nearby

17:03

, right , I mean to mitigate some of these transmission

17:06

issues that we were talking about .

17:07

Yeah , again , crystal ball would say yes , I

17:09

think that's where it's trending right . I think that in

17:11

also with AI I'm sure you know and you've

17:14

talked about right like the latency is less

17:16

of an issue than what

17:18

we've traditionally thought of when it comes to the cloud et

17:20

cetera . And so you

17:26

know , I think , locationally you still probably want to be within some reasonable driving

17:28

radius of a metro area because

17:30

you need the human resources , the

17:32

talent , to be able to get there

17:34

and reasonably be able to either commute

17:37

or live nearby . But

17:39

yeah , it does seem that the trend would be

17:41

the compute is going to move

17:43

to where the power is more

17:46

so than perhaps the power moving to the

17:48

compute .

17:50

Right , right , yeah , although some

17:52

days , at some point in the near future maybe

17:54

not in the near future you'll have these kinds of fuel

17:56

cells attached to micro

17:58

data centers , like the edge data centers , right when

18:00

it's like a little hydrogen fuel cell stuck

18:03

on the side or on the top

18:05

of a box , you know , and then then you'll

18:07

be able to sort of that's like a micro grid architecture

18:10

right when you would uh , you

18:12

know more , more , you know power

18:14

is more distributed to where the compute is

18:16

. I mean then that , but that's probably like

18:18

five to 10 years down the road , I would say .

18:21

Yeah Well , I mean , yes , I want , want to . I would

18:23

think so too , but when you look at the compounded

18:26

anal growth estimates for edge

18:28

, it's astronomically high

18:30

, right ? So you say , like , if

18:32

that's true , then we're going to have to figure

18:34

this out pretty quickly , right ?

18:36

to kind of yeah , right

18:38

because , yeah , because there's now there's like , there's core

18:40

, there's regional , there's edge , you know , there's

18:42

, you know , and then there's obviously the , the

18:45

, the , the devices too that are running

18:47

AI , and so how to get

18:49

power to where one of the benefits

18:52

of kind of thinking around edge computing

18:54

is around doing

18:57

the compute , where the data is generated , so

19:00

in the vehicle , on the robot

19:02

, in the factory floor , in the retail shop

19:04

, at the Taco Bell drive-thru

19:06

itself , and

19:08

so , as that trend continues to

19:10

happen , like you said , the growth trend is huge there

19:13

, like power needs to be

19:15

there , there needs to be power there , and

19:17

so I do think we're going to , in

19:19

addition to seeing the big

19:21

hyperscaler data centers with all the blackwells in

19:23

them , will you know , start springing up

19:25

in co-location with power plants

19:28

. I think we're also going to see a lot of innovation in

19:30

bringing microgrid power to

19:32

the edge . You know , to support

19:34

some of these more .

19:35

You know local , hyper local , you

19:38

know power needs right at the same time I

19:40

agree right , and and I think it's

19:42

also important to note that those microgrids need to

19:44

be able to scale up right and it's

19:46

modular in as simple , simple way as possible

19:49

to meet the growing power demand because

19:51

, again , based on what's being projected

19:53

, we've ever recently believed that

19:56

, yes , you're going to need that initial power and then it's going to

19:58

continue to grow , right

20:00

. So , just to take

20:02

a step back on this topic , what

20:04

I do think is interesting and where

20:07

my optimism comes in , as I

20:09

kind of look out five , 10 years to

20:11

your point on how this happens , we've

20:14

always talked about I say we

20:16

, us folks in the energy , clean tech sector

20:18

, et cetera . We've always kind of theorized about Power folks

20:20

. Yeah , these power folks like us , right

20:22

. We theorize about this grid of the future that

20:24

is going to be highly distributed , right

20:27

, and it's going to be highly it's

20:29

called bidirectional , in that a

20:31

power plant can both give

20:33

back power as much as it can consume

20:35

power , et cetera . And I think data

20:37

centers actually have the architecture

20:40

and have the ability to be these

20:42

distributed energy resources or like that

20:44

, right .

20:45

And when you start wrapping in what we call

20:47

virtual power plants or the software to put

20:49

everything together and get these really

20:52

interesting balances amongst all of these distributed

20:54

resources , you could start seeing

20:56

a case where the digital infrastructure sector

20:58

could actually underpin the

21:00

build-out of this distributed

21:03

grid of the future , which I think is super exciting

21:05

from that perspective right , right , the VPPs

21:08

, as they call them and in fact

21:10

I mean before we hit the record button we were talking

21:12

about you have this

21:14

kind of whole solar build-out at the Cape

21:16

, at your house , and

21:19

I'm currently speccing out adding solar there

21:21

too , because , for

21:23

those that don't know , the New England energy

21:25

market is quite expensive , and so

21:27

you know , in as much as you can generate your own

21:29

power there , that's a good thing for the long term . And

21:32

so then there's this thing called net metering , where , as

21:35

you're generating power and folks that have solar

21:37

know this , you know in times

21:39

when you're generating more power than you're using on your house

21:41

, you're able to sell that power back to the utility

21:44

right at whatever the kilowatt rate

21:46

hour is usually whatever

21:48

, and so that is kind of essentially

21:50

like what Bill's talking about . Right , this is

21:53

kind of like the microgrid idea

21:55

is that you know , power

21:57

generation is , could become , will

21:59

become , hyperlocal to a certain extent

22:01

through these renewable

22:04

resources , and that power

22:06

can then be fed back in to

22:08

a virtual power plant or some sort of system

22:10

that then can then feed that power out

22:13

to those that need more power than they're

22:15

generating , if that makes sense , right ? So , and

22:17

that could be the Taco Bell drive-thru that's running a bunch

22:19

of NVIDIA processors to look at like you

22:22

know how many tacos are in the bag or whatever

22:24

the AI thing is that they need to do

22:26

, and so that's a really interesting

22:29

development because it's sort of mixing

22:31

what some people are familiar with today , which is

22:33

creating their own power at their house using

22:35

solar panels or whatever , and

22:38

then you know the software

22:40

and the systems to sort of manage . All

22:42

that is very , you know , very

22:44

much in line with a lot of the uh technology

22:47

that's being developed today for data centers yeah

22:49

, I'd take it one step further .

22:50

Like the solar is . Just think of it like a little

22:53

power plant that's selling back into the grid

22:55

or offsetting . That's okay , that's like

22:57

. That's pretty simple . When you get into the

22:59

battery side or we'll call microgrid

23:01

solar plus storage and maybe plus a generator

23:04

of some kind right , you have a fully

23:06

grid independent system then , which means

23:09

it could participate in grid

23:11

services programs like demand response

23:13

, which is basically the grid says hey

23:15

, we need power back , you're consuming

23:17

it . Can you go offline and stop drawing

23:19

power from the grid ? We'll pay you for that right

23:22

, and because we have an independent system

23:24

, we can just rely on our battery

23:26

sort of little microgrid system for as long

23:29

as they need us offline . This is on

23:31

a really small scale in my home , of course

23:33

, it's not going to make much of a dent , but when you're talking

23:35

about megawatts , gigawatts , et cetera

23:37

at the data center level , that's very

23:39

meaningful and very helpful to the

23:41

grid .

23:43

Well and , like Massachusetts , is incentivizing

23:45

people through , you know , 0% interest

23:47

loans and other things to kind of start

23:49

generating their own power and selling it back

23:51

to utilities . So there's a motivation

23:53

there . It makes the grid more resilient , it

23:56

can really be an economic benefit to the

23:58

consumer and then , like you said

24:01

, we're starting to build out more capabilities

24:03

on that . The other big part , as you mentioned , was batteries

24:06

, which

24:09

we haven't really talked about . But the idea of using batteries to sort of , you know , flatten out the

24:11

demand curve a little bit . So you

24:13

know , if I'm generating a bunch of power , I'm

24:15

not using all of it . That's stored

24:17

energy somewhere right , could be on-prem

24:20

or local , and then when there's

24:22

a need , there's a store , store of stuff . And so

24:24

, you know , traditional power plants don't

24:26

operate with batteries . Obviously , they just sort

24:28

of generate power and you know

24:30

, and if people need , and if the community

24:33

needs , more power than the plant

24:35

is generating , then that's a problem . That's called

24:37

like a brownout basically , or whatever . So

24:39

, but with batteries you can actually kind

24:42

of level that off a little bit , actually

24:46

kind of level that off a little bit . And we're starting to see batteries being introduced , um

24:48

, obviously for data centers , but you can , you know , going

24:50

into these kind of edge compute situations

24:52

.

24:52

Batteries are a really important part of that too , to

24:55

help make sure that there's a good store of energy

24:57

over time yes , I

24:59

actually think this is where that more of like

25:01

the edge AI compute

25:05

load is really interesting , in

25:07

that you know there's a lot like

25:10

it is quite beneficial

25:12

to be able to participate in these grid services

25:14

programs , right , especially in ERCOT , kind

25:16

of famous for this right , where you can

25:19

do well by going offline

25:21

for an hour or whatever it may be right . And

25:23

so to think that these

25:25

AI loads could be located

25:28

in distributed basis across the US and across

25:30

the world really , and be able to participate in

25:32

these programs

25:35

, not only is that a grid positive , but from an economic

25:37

perspective for the owner

25:40

they can do quite well , and

25:42

so that becomes really interesting

25:44

. In having what we call flexible load resources

25:48

as part of this deployment

25:50

, and traditionally

25:52

I think it's been quite hard to get battery

25:54

adoption . It's still

25:56

a struggle . We're not anywhere near where we would like

25:58

to be . Perhaps

26:07

the growth in digital infrastructure is the catalyst to actually achieve all that we've

26:09

been sort of pushing for , you know , for the last 15 years , at least in my

26:11

my career so far 15 years

26:14

.

26:14

Yeah , yeah Well , and also what's been happening too

26:16

, which is helping is , I mean , if you look at

26:18

going back to the NVIDIA announcements on Blackwell

26:20

, it's about the thing about 3X more

26:23

power efficient than the

26:25

, the hopper um chips

26:27

. So you know , you're

26:29

, of course , it's 1200 watts but it's generating

26:31

a lot more tops or um , you

26:34

know , teraflops , whatever , but it's

26:36

more ai horsepower per

26:38

watt than it used to be quite a bit , and so

26:40

we're seeing a lot more improvement . And then , of course , you

26:42

get into more , you know , real

26:45

edge computing platforms . I mean , look at Qualcomm

26:47

, snapdragon and what Intel's

26:49

doing , and then getting down to the NXPs

26:51

and the STs and everyone else , they're really

26:55

doing incredible amounts of horsepower

26:57

with very little electricity . So

26:59

there's always improvements going on there too . So we're

27:01

seeing power as a part

27:03

of the value prop these days for AI chips

27:05

. Right , it's not just the horsepower , but it's the power

27:08

consumption , because , of course , some of them will be

27:10

running in battery-powered systems

27:12

, whether it's your phone or

27:14

a drone or a robot or whatever , but

27:17

also even when they're on the grid , power

27:19

is an important part of the value prop

27:21

because , like you said , it's a scarce resource

27:23

, it's an expensive resource and I think anyone with an AI . It's a scarce resource

27:26

, it's an expensive resource and I think anyone with an AI strategy also

27:28

needs a power strategy . I mean they have to be

27:30

going hand in hand , right .

27:32

I think that's right . I mean also

27:34

, we can point to the you say

27:36

expensive , we can point to the per

27:39

kilowatt hour charges at least we've been seeing

27:41

and the rise in those over the

27:43

years , right . I don't think we're

27:46

going to see a time where that really comes down

27:48

materially . I think that is heading

27:50

up right and if that assumption is

27:52

true , it also makes

27:54

a really good case for some version of these microgrids

27:57

as well . A lot of them

27:59

already pencil in high power

28:02

price markets , like in California

28:04

, like in much of the Northeast PJM

28:06

territory , et cetera . Right , these are penciling

28:09

out , whereas a handful of years ago they

28:11

didn't pencil as compared to the grid . So

28:13

now you actually have an opportunity where not only is this

28:16

more resilient and providing all

28:18

of the benefits that we just discussed , but it's also

28:20

less expensive and

28:22

can be at a fixed price . So we're

28:24

not going to see this , the escalation you might

28:26

expect from the traditional

28:28

True , yeah , and at first you know going back to

28:31

solar .

28:31

I mean , the panels are more efficient than they used to be and

28:33

all that other stuff . So now it's combination

28:36

of efficiency of the tech and , unfortunately

28:39

, the cost of the power are now , you

28:41

know , meeting at a point where it

28:43

kind of makes a lot of sense to to , to get

28:45

more into these micro grids and thinking

28:47

about that . So , that that's yeah , that's part of the equation . And

28:49

then we also talked about just that

28:52

. You know the big power stories

28:54

for some of these hyperscalers and how they're solving

28:56

that by . You know , leaning into

28:58

energy resources . Let's put it that way

29:00

and we'll see how far they lean . Lean

29:02

in , but they're going to need to

29:04

. You know

29:06

, we know the hyperscalers have whole organizations dedicated to

29:09

power planning and you

29:11

know all this other stuff right , cause it's a big deal

29:13

, it's , it's a it's non-trivial

29:15

stuff . So it'll be really interesting to see how

29:17

all this stuff plays out over the next five , 10

29:19

years . I think if people are looking for , you

29:21

know , career opportunities , I think the power space

29:24

is always , it seems like there's

29:26

a lot of work to do there , right ?

29:28

Especially where it intersects with digital right

29:30

.

29:30

I mean .

29:30

that's the equation Incredible

29:33

.

29:33

Yeah , good . Well

29:35

, bill , it's great having you on the show and

29:39

you know I do . I have it in my to-do list

29:41

to go check out your solar , your solar

29:43

setup at your house .

29:44

Yes . State of

29:47

the art . I was going to say I would

29:49

also say just to the edge side

29:51

, right , I mean

29:53

to all of it . As you know , ubiquity

29:55

is a is a platform company

29:57

and generates . It's focused traditionally

29:59

on fiber , but it's really digital infrastructure

30:01

. They're now in the edge data center business , but we

30:04

look at that business and and

30:06

we think about what's the value proposition

30:09

for the market , right ? What

30:11

we're kind of landing on is you need to be able to

30:13

provide not just a hosted edge

30:15

data center , you need to be able to provide the edge data

30:17

center with the power capacity at

30:20

a given price . That whole package

30:22

has to be together , and

30:27

I think that the industry , the sector , the developers and the , the companies that are

30:29

focusing on working on this problem , need

30:31

that as a takeaway . You need to have both

30:33

. It cannot just be hey , I have a great

30:36

edge data center pod here . It has to be what's

30:38

the total solution ? Can you deliver me , you

30:40

know , x megawatts in

30:42

less than 24 months or less than 36

30:45

months ? Right , Ready to go at this

30:47

power price ? And this is

30:49

really where Ubiquity and its

30:51

edge business anyway , is spending a lot of time . How

30:53

do we deliver that full package

30:55

? Right , but I would say that's , the whole

30:57

sector needs to be thinking along those

31:00

lines .

31:00

Yeah Well , kind of going back to the Brad Smith

31:02

thing I mentioned at the start is , like you know

31:04

, the two fundamental parts

31:06

of the AI economy are power and connectivity

31:09

and they need to be thought of together so

31:11

you can't obviously have one without

31:13

the other and still have a business . But , yeah

31:17

, cool . Well , bill , again thanks , thanks

31:19

a lot for joining us , and

31:21

you know we're at the end of another

31:23

podcast , so hopefully folks

31:25

learned a little bit and really appreciate

31:28

it . Thanks for having me All right

31:32

. Thanks

31:36

for joining us today on the Edge Celsius Show

31:38

. Please subscribe and stay tuned

31:40

for more and check us out online about how

31:42

you can scale your edge compute business

31:50

.