The Information's TITV
00:35:35 · Lori Goler, Stephanie Palazzolo
[00:35:35] S6: Yeah, I hope so. I hope that this will really be an effort. Since the announcement, actually, we've had great interest from a lot of players who've reached out to learn more and to find out what it's really about and to consider kind of joining the initiative. Again, think it's bigger than any one of us. It really is an industry wide cross sector initiative, and I really hope that we'll have lots of different players who are involved in contributing over time. [00:35:59] S0: Why does right now feel like the right time to be doing this sort of thing? Right? You know, I've had people tell me that one reason why AI is really good at doing science is because, you know, the average scientist, maybe you're an expert in bio, but maybe you're not an expert in physics or all these other areas. And AI models are really good at connecting these disparate dots across different fields. That's like one reason I've heard. Like, why do you think LLMs, today's frontier AI models, are making it so that now is the right time to go after this?
00:35:59 · Stephanie Palazzolo, Lori Goler
[00:35:59] S0: Why does right now feel like the right time to be doing this sort of thing? Right? You know, I've had people tell me that one reason why AI is really good at doing science is because, you know, the average scientist, maybe you're an expert in bio, but maybe you're not an expert in physics or all these other areas. And AI models are really good at connecting these disparate dots across different fields. That's like one reason I've heard. Like, why do you think LLMs, today's frontier AI models, are making it so that now is the right time to go after this? [00:36:31] S6: Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, all of these efforts have happened in silos in the past. And I think with the new technology, we can really bring it all together. It can synthesize across various different disciplines. And and now is the right time for this because the piece that's missing is the data. You know, we really need more data, and we're at a moment in time where everyone has realized it at the same time. They've And also realized that they can't solve that problem by themselves. And so I think that's what makes it a really great area for collaboration in this very moment. [00:37:01] S0: Super exciting stuff. Well, it was really great having you on, Lori. Thank you [00:37:04] S6: so much.
00:37:04 · Lori Goler, Stephanie Palazzolo, Amanda Peterson Corio
[00:37:04] S6: so much. [00:37:05] S0: We'll have to keep in touch on on how all of your work is going moving forward. But, again, that was Lori Goler, president of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative here on TITV. Amanda Peterson Corio leads Google's global energy and power strategy, helping to secure the electricity it needs to power its expanding infrastructure. But can the energy great keep up with the AI boom? That's what we'll be talking about today. Amanda, welcome to TITV. [00:37:42] S7: Thank you. Thank you for having [00:37:43] S0: me. So, you know, looking back over the past two years, it feels like, you know, originally just getting the chips themselves was the biggest issue. Now to add on top of that, we have all these other bottlenecks like memory, energy, obviously, which you're very focused on. I mean, how much computing capacity today is being held up by power bottlenecks for Google specifically? It's
00:37:43 · Stephanie Palazzolo, Amanda Peterson Corio
[00:37:43] S0: me. So, you know, looking back over the past two years, it feels like, you know, originally just getting the chips themselves was the biggest issue. Now to add on top of that, we have all these other bottlenecks like memory, energy, obviously, which you're very focused on. I mean, how much computing capacity today is being held up by power bottlenecks for Google specifically? It's [00:38:05] S7: a really interesting question. Think, today most people think about the hold up to AI being either capital or access to chips, as you mentioned. But there is an inherent disconnect between, we are now updating software in seconds. We are now updating our chips in six months to eighteen month cycles. But to build out large power infrastructure takes years. And so, really, when we work in our field and infrastructure, we're not thinking about next year or the year after that. That's already been written. That's all the work that we've done the years prior. We think in terms of '28, '29, '30, or even beyond. And so we're always building that infrastructure three years ahead or four years ahead to be able to meet, future demands or needs. There's plenty of power. It's just being able to thoughtfully design and structure in the right way to be able to get it built in time to meet the needs.
00:38:05 · Amanda Peterson Corio, Stephanie Palazzolo
[00:38:05] S7: a really interesting question. Think, today most people think about the hold up to AI being either capital or access to chips, as you mentioned. But there is an inherent disconnect between, we are now updating software in seconds. We are now updating our chips in six months to eighteen month cycles. But to build out large power infrastructure takes years. And so, really, when we work in our field and infrastructure, we're not thinking about next year or the year after that. That's already been written. That's all the work that we've done the years prior. We think in terms of '28, '29, '30, or even beyond. And so we're always building that infrastructure three years ahead or four years ahead to be able to meet, future demands or needs. There's plenty of power. It's just being able to thoughtfully design and structure in the right way to be able to get it built in time to meet the needs. [00:39:00] S0: And, know, as you're saying, the power that we have access to today, maybe that was decided two or three years ago, where I'm sure you, you know, Google out of anyone probably knew that the big AI boom was coming, but I'm sure even you didn't realize how incredibly huge this moment would, would, would, would be. I mean, when you think about how much power you have access to now and maybe the limits that places on compute capacity, are we talking... You know, is there more than a gigawatt that's being held up because you just don't have enough power? Is there a way to kind of quantify how much capacity is being held up at at the moment because of power?
00:39:33 · Amanda Peterson Corio, Stephanie Palazzolo
[00:39:33] S7: I... At at this moment, we're continuing to build out and, as you mentioned, having to be creative in how do we access more more capacity to meet ever growing demand. And that looks like building on new structures. So we think not only about how do we build and interconnect to the grid. You see a lot of what's called colocation of power, so building power faster, so you don't actually have to wait on transmission being built to to build it next to the data center. But there's also a lot of solutions that we're opening up to meet demand. We recently announced a partnership with Voltus where we're going to do over a gigawatt of what's called, virtual power plants or demand response, where the problem on on meeting power requirements isn't necessarily around the clock. It's just in a few hours of the year when everybody turns on their air conditioner or everybody's using the grid at the same time. So actually getting creative and working with partners to figure out how can we reduce loads on the grids just during a few hours of the year can actually open up that capacity so it's no longer a bottleneck for us on the grid. [00:40:38] S0: Mhmm. And for that deal specifically, that means paying these homes and businesses Right. To stop using electricity for some of these hours of super high demand.