00:57:02 · Vincent Weisser, John Coogan
[00:57:02] S3: And, yeah, like, I think we'll be like, there will be, I think, a bunch of, like, quite unpredictable changes similar to all. Like, the last few months have been quite unpredictable Mhmm. I think, to everyone involved. So I think this will continue to be the case in the sense that it will be, like, quite a dicey policy like, AI policy landscape for the next few years. Mhmm. [00:57:21] S1: Last question. Data centers are data center construction, new data center construction, deeply unpopular in America domestically. Simultaneously, the workloads that are being done in AI data centers are basically latency is basically irrelevant. For training, certainly, for most inference tasks, if you're waiting a couple minutes for a result, an extra five hundred milliseconds to get across the world isn't gonna This feels like a recipe for global competition, for aggressive data center expansion in a country that does see it favorably, that does see an economic boom from it, or does have a lot of energy. What is the state of the non domestic, non US data center build out?
00:58:09 · Vincent Weisser, Jordi Hays, Rodrigo Liang
[00:58:09] S3: Yes. So, like, we're certainly, like, building a lot of data centers and, like, partnering with a lot of them, like, outside of The US as well. But, like, I think there's still a lot of demand, actually, for data centers in The US. Think, like, even from a data perspective, like, there's a lot of now, like, the financial industries and and highly regulated industries, like, also adopting, obviously, more and more agents and and compute. I do think inference still matters. I like speed in a sense, like, maybe not for, like, long running agents, but, like, for a lot of use cases, people, I think, still really care about, like, having extremely snappy, like, responses. But I think, like, there there's definitely, I think, like, a general boom in data center build outs outside of The US as well. I think there's just, a limited set of countries who are, like, strong, like, allies with, like, ample amounts of, like, like, geopolitical stability, but then also, like, like, energy and and and and green like like, green fields and and enough space. [00:59:01] S0: Yeah. US has unique access to natural gas [00:59:04] S4: Mhmm. [00:59:04] S0: Which is if you're trying to bring energy online super quickly, it's hard
00:59:08 · Vincent Weisser
[00:59:08] S3: to beat. Yes. And I I think, like, we we're seeing this across Europe even where, like, there's specific regions, right, like, are, like, much more active in data center build outs than others, and and those are generally the ones that, like, have their own, like, money internalized on them and, like, cheap energy and and a lot of, like, also local support for it. So I think, like, in general, from what we are seeing, I think there's, like, there there is new entrance almost, like, to to the data center build outs, where it's, like, in places like Australia and New Zealand, like and and, like, a small much small place, right, like, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and others, who, like, have a huge amount of energy and and huge like, and and making huge bets also on data centers by a while also being, like, allies of The US. So I think those are the countries, I think, generally, which will see the biggest boom in data centers. I think at the same time, like, I think we'll also continue to see see a boom in US data centers. But, yeah, there there's definitely it's definitely harder to get data centers in The US than outside of The US, and and so it's where I think we'll we'll see both continuously expand. And then I think there there might also be, obviously, like, your point, like, policy, like like, updating for like, what was the upcoming elections and and in midterms, I think, I think, like, this this whole almost, like, populism in in The US around, like, data centers and, like, a lot of the the kind of, I think, public sentiment as as potentially also, like, sovereign influences and other things, like, from other nation states who who are trying to harm almost, like, The US data center build out. Yeah. So I think there's, like, a lot of things at stake for The US, right, it's, like, to to not pull back on on their data center build out. But I think there will also be specific states who are, like, leaning in much more heavily than others. Right? Like, I I think this is already what we're seeing where, like Texas. Exactly. So it's, like, there's specific states in The US that are just, like, much more well suited to really ramp up data centers from here. Mhmm. And yeah. And I think we'll we'll see them ramp up globally and and hopefully also outside of, like, beyond Earth. And I think Yeah. Like I think this is the only way to really probably scale.
01:01:09 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Ben Thompson
[01:01:09] S1: I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Congratulations. Incredible progress. [01:01:13] S0: We love seeing you and the team win. [01:01:15] S1: Yeah. It's fantastic. Have a great rest of your day. Say hello to Will for us, and we'll talk to you later. Cheers. Goodbye. Let me tell you about Cisco. Critical infrastructure for the AI era unlocks seamless real time experiences and new value with Cisco. Our next guest is Ben Thompson, the founder of Strathecory. He's been on an absolute tear during a slow news cycle. Does it feel like a slow news cycle to you? [01:01:41] S8: I don't know. It it and the summer is always slow. Yeah. I, you know, I take a couple days. Alright. I slow down a little bit myself. [01:01:48] S1: I feel like you've done a good job of, like, providing really insightful and interesting pieces during a slow time where I didn't know that I wanted I'm doing you a favor. Yeah. You are. [01:01:59] S8: Is that what I'm hearing [01:01:59] S1: from I didn't know I wanted you to adopt the voice of Mark Zuckerberg for twenty minutes and and go on a tear but it's not like that was driven by, like, a specific okay. There's a Wall Street Journal article where, like, Bloomberg has a scoop and, like, we need to know this. It's more just, like, resetting on the metanarrative. I wanna talk about the metanarrative, but can we start with Xbox? [01:02:20] S8: Sure.
01:02:20 · Ben Thompson, John Coogan, Rodrigo Liang
[01:02:20] S8: Sure. [01:02:21] S1: I want to know first, let's go back in time a little bit, and I want you to reality check me on the the the story I tell myself about how Microsoft wound up in the situation it wound up in with Xbox. And I think it stems with DirectX. The it's the graphics layer that allowed games to be run on multiple graphics cards. So that was a Microsoft licensed piece of property. So you this is why we don't have the Chromebox. [01:02:52] S8: You wanna go you wanna go really far far back. [01:02:54] S1: Like like, because we do we didn't get an Amazon gaming console. We didn't get a a Google gaming console. Right? Right. Like, why why [01:03:02] S8: is that so? So you well, you go back way back. I mean, can go really far back. [01:03:06] S1: Please. [01:03:07] S8: I mean, back in the day, the main technology for doing three d when it was coming along was OpenGL. And OpenGL had various [01:03:17] S4: plus [01:03:17] S8: or minuses. It was, you know, we're way back in history. But the way this is the origin of the NVIDIA story. [01:03:23] S1: Yeah.
01:03:23 · John Coogan, Ben Thompson
[01:03:23] S1: Yeah. [01:03:23] S8: Making cards to do three d graphics. You had, like, the Riva, the one twenty eight, then the TNT. Yeah. Then you get the GeForce, and, like, we're talking back in the nineties when I was, you know, your guys' age or whatever it was in college. And, you know, making the first, you know, Quake comes out, like, the real first three d games, you know. There's actually a really interesting Twitter back and forth with the old id people talking about Quake and how basically they obliterated the company by burning everyone out by launching it. Woah. But super fun super fun back and forth. But Microsoft comes out with Direct three d as an alternative to OpenGL. Mhmm. That was, I think and this is a little out of my area of expertise, but I think it was a little easier to use, had more niceties, was more tied into the platform. But this is all sort of PC gaming. Yeah. The Xbox, the way I think about it, and a lot of gamers kinda get annoyed and write about the gaming stuff because I don't really care about the game part of it. I'm more interested like the the strategy and how that fits in the overall What is your review? [01:04:25] S1: Yeah. Can we get a GTA six review? No. Well, [01:04:29] S8: I feel I feel compelled number one, I feel Rockstar, I think, is charging way too little for this game. They're charging, what, $80? Yes. Like, this is a game. [01:04:37] S1: This is you're gonna get canceled for this. This is a nuclear take. No. They should be charging like $200 for this animation. I know. [01:04:44] S8: GTA six is like the last great game.