Hi Pattabi, lovely to see you.
This is your first Davos isn't it?
It is, Vaishali.
It's my first Davos.
I find it very interesting--quick and compact place for networking,
understanding what's on people's minds, and hopefully contributing a little bit
on energy.
Fantastic.
And given all the role that, well, AI, in general but now agentic is coming in,
I can only see the compute needs going up even further and therefore the demands on
energy going up even more substantially.
What's your take?
Will the energy companies be able to really fulfill this?
It's seen as a big bottleneck right now.
It is seen as a big bottleneck.
You know, data centers were always a big business
for energy companies.
They used to grow 12%.
Now they're going to be growing 16-17%. The need is going to double-- for the
energy nerds out there, going from 60 gigawatts to 130 gigawatts.
It's a big deal.
So they're trying to prepare and do everything they can.
It's going to be an all-of-the-above solution.
So Vaishali, a question that comes up from energy
companies.
This is a lot of capital.
Some are saying $1. 8 trillion of capital from the tech
companies that's needed to pull this off.
Are they serious?
Can they make this happen?
So I'll give you the factual part and then a fun fact.
So we did a survey of 1, 800 execs around the world recently,
in December, and we found that most are going to
increase their spend by 60% on AI in the next three years.
So the spend is real.
Of course, the challenge is to realize value,
which is going to be something that I think is a journey and will continue to
evolve.
And then, of course, there is, you know, this is not just the tech companies,
even PE players are putting money in to provide the funding for the
infrastructure.
And then, on the fun fact, I'm sure you've heard of Stargate.
So I think the energy companies really need to get ready here.
But in your view, do you believe that there are other
alternative ways that energy companies will innovate to get through this
bottleneck?
They're trying to throw everything that they can at this.
There are dedicated teams at energy companies that are focused on data center
demand and how to meet it.
They're looking at all the full range of solutions.
And so they're going to, they're as prepared as they're going to
be at this stage.
And by full range, you mean? Everything from renewables, gas, nuclear,
geothermal, and also looking at all the
sustainability solutions--carbon capture and so forth.
So that's been the focus at energy companies.
And actually the tech companies are doing their part as well, Pattabi.
They're looking at ways to really, you know,
even further optimize energy consumption, really re-engineer operations, etc.,
to see, you know, how they can do their bit here as well.
So Pattabi, thank you for doing this.
And really after 27 years, when we first met at new higher
orientation and did our case team together, we got a chance to collaborate.
And I love the fact that we're going to get to do a lot more together over the
coming years because tech and energy are getting closer.
Absolutely.
Well said.