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AI, Energy and Climate Podcast

The DSR Network

AI, Energy and Climate Podcast

The DSR Network

Welcome to the AI, Energy and Climate podcast, a special series from the DSR Network hosted by David Sandalow, Inaugural Fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Join us as we talk with leading experts to explore the intersection between these critical issues that will impact the future of each and every one of us. For more information about the issues discussed in this show, please go to: https://www.icef.go.jp/roadmap/ and transitiondigital.org/ai-climate-roadmap.

Jul 20

Distributed Home Data Centers: Arch Rao

NVIDIA, the Silicon Valley-based company SPAN and a major homebuilder recently announced a partnership to deploy mini-data centers at homes around the US. By using existing grid capacity, the companies hope to close the speed-to-power gap by building netwo...

Jul 17

Entering a New Chapter in the Debate on AI Policy

The landscape of AI policy is changing rapidly. From a one year data center moratorium in New York to sweeping new energy laws in Thailand, it’s clear that governments around the world are exploring radical new approaches to artificial intelligence. AI, En...

Jun 09

AI and energy access: Bill Lenihan

Can AI help deliver access to reliable, affordable energy in emerging economies? The team at ZOLA Intelligence believes the answer to that question is yes. According to the company's website, ZOLA's platform "is engineered to solve energy inequality for bi...

Jun 02

The Pope's Powerful Message on AI

Pope Leo sent some strong messages about AI in his 42,000-word essay last week. Is the Pope anti-AI? What risks and benefits of AI does the Pope highlight? What impact will the Pope's essay have, including with big tech companies? Join host David Sandalow ...

Apr 28

IEA’s New Energy and AI Report: Thomas Spencer and Siddharth Singh

The International Energy Agency just released a new report on energy and AI, updating its landmark report on that topic last year. The new report – called Key Questions on Energy and AI -- provides authoritative information on a wide range of topics includ...

Apr 02

Nuclear security in Iran, energy innovation and AI: Ernest Moniz

What impact is the war in Iran having on nuclear security? If President Trump ever follows through on his threat to "obliterate" Iran's largest power plants, what risks would that create at the Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr? What impact does AI ha...

Mar 10

Economic Growth, Climate Change and AI: Lord Nicholas Stern and Dr. Mattia Romani

Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the landmark Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, recently released his new book The Growth Story of the 21st Century: The Economics and Opportunity of Climate Action. Along with Dr. Mattia Romani and other collea...

Mar 03

India AI Impact Summit: Arunabha Ghosh

More than 35,000 people attended the recent India AI Impact Summit in Delhi, which featured speeches from more than 20 heads of state and dozens of technology company leaders including Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Demis Hassabis of G...

Feb 04

Power Prices, Data Centers and US-Canada Geopolitics

In a high-profile speech, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently declared "We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition." US government officials and many others interpreted the comment to refer at least in part to the dramatic developments in ...

Jan 28

AI, Innovation and the Power Sector: Sandy Grace

Electric utilities are not generally known as hotbeds of innovation. What would it take for electric utilities to become more innovative? What impact would that have on the adoption of AI technologies in the power sector? Can AI tools help control power pr...

AI, Innovation and the Power Sector: Sandy Grace

Jan 21

Power Prices, Data Centers and the Bipartisan PJM Agreement: Peter Fox-Penner

Increasing power prices are a hot topic in the United States. Last week the Trump administration, eight Democratic governors and five Republican governors announced a plan to protect households in mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states from paying more for ele...

2025/12/11

A Net-Positive AI Energy Framework: Ginelle Greene-Dewasmes

AI’s huge energy needs are getting enormous media attention. AI’s potential to make energy more secure, clean and affordable is getting less attention. What would it take for AI’s impact on the energy system to be net-positive? What would that mean exactly...

2025/10/07

Data Center Water Use: Alexis Abramson, Julio Friedmann and Angela Yuan

How significant is data center water use? Is it tiny in relation to other sectors, significant in some water-stressed regions, or both? Can new liquid-based cooling technologies which (perhaps counter-intuitively) need less water than traditional air-based...

2025/09/16

Amory Lovins: Reflections of an AI Skeptic

Amory Lovins has been a leading thinker on energy policy for more than 50 years. Several months ago he wrote an article with the provocative title "Artificial Intelligence Meets Natural Stupidity." As the title suggests, Lovins is skeptical about AI in a n...

2025/09/09

Jennifer Granholm: Reflections of an AI Optimist

After a pause over the summer, we’re restarting the AI, Energy and Climate Podcast with a conversation between Jennifer Granholm, former U.S. Secretary of Energy and Governor of Michigan, and host David Sandalow. Sec. Granholm explains why she’s an “AI opt...

2025/06/09

Nick Chaset: Octopus Energy, Grid Flexibility and Data Center Load Growth

Octopus Energy, a global technology and energy company, was founded in the UK 10 years ago with the goal of helping to transform electric utilities. It created Kraken, a cloud-based platform that helps utilities and their customers manage data from smart m...

Nick Chaset: Octopus Energy, Grid Flexibility and Data Center Load Growth

2025/05/12

Damilola Ogunbiyi: AI, Energy Access and the Digital Divide

More than a billion people in the world live in energy poverty, with little or no access to electricity. Can AI help put an end to energy poverty -- or could it make the problem worse? Is there a risk of a new digital divide, with the US, China and Europe ...

2025/05/05

Arun Majumdar: AI, Energy and Education

Arun Majumdar is the inaugural Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University and previously served as Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and Chair of the Secretary's Advisory Board at the...

2025/04/28

AI Ready

Jensen Huang: The Power of Intelligence Infrastructure

Thirty-two years after Jensen Huang founded NVIDIA, the company is at the center of the AI revolution and the third-most valuable company in the world. Jensen -- as he is known throughout his company and the IT industry -- is shaping the future of AI and c...

2025/04/24

Taylor Sparks and Colin McCormick: AI for Materials Innovation Part 2

Can AI help discover new materials, leading to dramatic breakthroughs in clean energy technologies? In Episode #1 of our deep dive on this topic, host David Sandalow explored the potential for breakthroughs with Taylor Sparks, a professor at the University...