The Information's TITV
00:40:07 · Akash Pasricha, Mahdi Yahya
[00:40:07] S0: Brookfield part of this is I think really interesting because we have talked on this show about power being the bottleneck here. Brookfield, of course, is a leader in that space. Can you give us an example here of specifically how your relationship with Brookfield has helped you access power in a cleaner way, perhaps in an expedited way, perhaps in ways that other facilities may not have access to power? [00:40:36] S3: Brookfield is one of the largest asset managers in the world. They're also one of the largest investor in power and renewables. I mean, they have a large platform for renewables investments in the world. And this alone gives us effectively access to a very large portfolio and a large network of power sources and power operations that we can leverage to effectively deliver the compute infrastructure that we are delivering. And as I said earlier, whenever we start with any project, we start with the principle of PowerFest. And our starting point is always around the availability of power, the type of power, and the strategy around power in each site. And from there, we build everything accordingly from that regard. And being part of the Brookfield ecosystem allows us to basically employ this strategy much more effectively than anyone else. [00:41:35] S0: Okay. And I mean, is the power cleaner at all?
00:41:35 · Akash Pasricha, Mahdi Yahya
[00:41:35] S0: Okay. And I mean, is the power cleaner at all? [00:41:40] S3: Absolutely. We always look for clean sources of energy. We look at the environmental impact of the power that we're generating or we're actually connecting to our sites as well. And it's a big part of our strategy as well in terms of delivering power to the sites that we're building. [00:41:56] S0: Right. So, look, we saw the election results, here in The US, there's a conversation now around what it means for data center development here domestically, whether or not these facilities will actually get built. You introduced this facility in The UK that you're building, and so one thought that I've had actually is, okay, well, maybe if companies can't get their facilities built in The US, do they start to look abroad? I mean, I know that this is a very new conversation now given the results, but what's your perspective on all this?
00:42:35 · Mahdi Yahya, Akash Pasricha, Bradley Tusk
[00:42:35] S3: I think the, let's call them the community concerns that have been growing over the past few months are not just in The US as well. I believe it's a natural thing, and a lot of these concerns are valid. As operators, I believe it's our responsibility to actually address these concerns in the right way when we're basically building these projects within certain communities. So responsible and experienced operators have been also addressing a lot of these concerns when building data centers and infrastructure. I would say the AI boom kind of drove the creation of a lot of inexperienced operators, sometimes cowboys even in this space. And that led to a lot of operators to cut corners when delivering these projects. And that kind of created, I would say, a lot of these concerns in the community. But the pushback that is happening, I would say, and the correction that is happening both on government level. I mean, The UK, the government recently just announced the Data Center Covenant that allows operators like us to actually deliver projects on time and in the right way, but also addresses a lot of the community concerns that have been happening around data center projects themselves. And I think these initiatives are good things. This [00:43:52] S0: push How does it address the concerns? [00:43:55] S2: So
00:43:55 · Bradley Tusk, Mahdi Yahya
[00:43:55] S2: So [00:43:58] S3: when you're building within a community, you really need to take them on the journey with you, and you need to be able to actually involve them in the process. So there is elements of reinvesting in that community, there's elements of basically negotiating with that community, and make them a stakeholder into all of these projects that are happening. Because look, we have to understand, nobody's pushing back on AI or AI infrastructure because it's good for everyone. The communities are users and beneficiaries of AI as well. And therefore, we need to be able to build this infrastructure to deliver AI globally to these communities in the right way. So involving them in the process and involving them in becoming stakeholder in the process, I believe, is extremely important. And the UK government's Data Center Covenant does a lot of that as well. There's a lot of different elements in it that allows operators like us to actually have these conversations with the communities and effectively involve them and make them stakeholders in the process, which I believe is the right way of actually delivering these projects on time and in the right way. And we're taking into account communities, environments, and everything else involved in projects like these.
00:45:06 · Akash Pasricha
[00:45:06] S0: Great. Well, Mahdi, want to thank you for coming on. That is Mahdi Yahya, the CEO of Radiant here on TITV. That does it for today's show. A reminder, we are on this stream Monday through Friday at 10AM Pacific, 1PM Eastern. If you can't make it then, episodes are available on theinformation.com, on our YouTube channel, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to follow us on social media on X, on Instagram, on TikTok, and on LinkedIn. I am already excited for our next show tomorrow. Have a great rest of your Wednesday. Bye bye for now.