0:00things must be default legal as opposed to default illegal. Um so uh in in the EU for example we find that the the regulation level is extraordinarily high and things are generally default illegal. Um and this inhibits uh progress of new technologies. Um it it slows it down. It doesn't it doesn't ultimately stop it but it slows it down uh quite considerably.
0:24um that of course you need to have um a you need to have venture capitalists um and an environment that is supportive of new companies. You can think of new companies like little like they're like small saplings in a forest. So what what most countries tend to do is they tend to provide too much support to the large existing trees in the forest and not
0:51enough to the small saplings. But the large trees don't need the support. It's the small saplings that do the startups.
1:00And so the system should be generally biased towards supporting the small the small trees as opposed to the large ones. Um but that is rarely the case uh because the law the the the large companies have access to um usually they have access to the leadership of the countries and the small the small startups do not. So you so you really need to foster the the growth of of
1:28young companies and take active steps in that regard. Um and like I said make things default legal not default illegal.
1:37One one question that um a lot of the countries here face is a question around adoption. I think there's a a general um recognition that adopting emerging technologies can be very beneficial to economic growth um no matter what sort of shape size of of any country is. Um you know how do you think about adoption? What country what should countries be doing to encourage adoption? Does it go back to the same sort of regulatory structures or or how do you think about adoption as a as a
2:05key driver for growth?
2:08Yeah, I I I think you you want to have a lean forward try new technologies approach to new technologies otherwise as opposed to be somewhat stuck in the past. Um naturally new technologies need need to be need some encouragement and and uh I I think should be embraced. Um we are going to see and are seeing in fact significant productivity gains from artificial intelligence. Um and and
2:37we'll see very dramatic gains in productivity from robotics. Um you know things like with Tesla self-driving car is going to be a tremendous boon or is a tremendous tremendous boon already um to users. Um and and I think humanoid robotics will be just an incredible change. But I think just to give you some sense of scale here, I think the um I I think AI will probably
3:07increase the global economy by 20 to 30%. That's my rough rough estimate. Um meaning on the order of 20 to30 trillion per year. Um and and AI will be able to do anything digital, anything that does not require shaping of atoms by hand. um probably by the end of next year. So, as as I'm sure people know, uh AI is already uh incredibly good at software.
3:37Um and it it's getting to the point where AI won't just be good at software, it'll be what I call Stockfish level good. So, Stockfish is a chess program that can beat the world's best chess players very easily. In fact, at this point, you could run Stockfish on your phone and beat Magnus Carlson at chess. So, uh, at some at some point next year is my prediction. Uh, software will be so good, AI software will be so good that
4:06it will be Stockfish level good, meaning that it is impossible for a human to compete um in writing software uh with AI. But like a AI will just crush all humans at software. And I think it'll it will be uh extremely good possibly stock rush level but but certainly extremely good at all forms of of engineering and anything digital uh literally in 12 12 to 18 months.
4:33I one of the so actually let me add just one one more thing to that my apologies um the the so 20 to 30% increase of total global economy. So this is quite a lot of prosperity we're talking about here. um uh just just from digital AI but from robotics uh from um from humanoid basically think of it like a general purpose robot robot AI I think we'll see many multiples of the global economy
5:01meaning like you you can increase the economy by a factor of 10 or more these are mindboggling numbers yeah I was just about to say that I mean one of the stats we gave to the group here was that um in the four years since sort chat GBT was launched. I think we there's you know over a billion people around the world already using AI.
5:20There's been very quick uptake around around the country on around the world on that. I guess the question to you is I think a lot of people think about sort of the the next chapter being in this sort of applied or or sort of physical AI where where do you see sort of robotics trending? How quickly is it going to be implemented? I think I remember in the first Trump administration we were talking about sort of automated factories and now we're a year later 10 years later. And so how how you know how quickly do you think these these changes are happening in the sort of physical AI world?
5:49Yeah. So so anything physical always takes longer than anything which is digital. Digital you know it's when you solve something digitally it's just software that you can easily copy across other other computers. Um when it's physical you've got to build up an entire massive supply chain. You've got to you've got to move a lot of lot of atoms. Um all and and supply chains are very much global at this point. So uh that that's why it takes longer.
6:12Nonetheless, um when you think of humanoid robotics, the way the the way you think about I I think the right framework is to consider that the usefulness of a humanoid robot, a general purpose robot, is going to be um roughly the uh digital the the AI software, how good is the AI software times how good is the uh AI chip in the robot times how good is the electromechanical dexterity, especially of the hands. Um now all three of those
6:41things are improving exponentially. Um and and the usefulness of the robot is those those three things multiplied by each other. Then when you make the robots the robots will um um the robots will start manufacturing the robots. So you get a recursive effect. So it it starts off very very slowly but then grows um at an explosive rate. Um so if you you say like 10 years from now I would say there are well over
7:10a billion humanoid robots.
7:14Um and the productivity per robot will be probably five times that of a human.
7:22Meaning meaning that the productivity in 10 years of humanoid robots and I think this is a conservative estimate by the way. Um, this is this is one I I'd be would be willing to to put serious money betting on. Um, that there will be at least a billion robots in 10 years and that those robots will be at least five times the output of a human. Meaning the the billion humanoid robots will will um be more productive than all humans combined.
7:52Wow. Um, shifting gears just a little bit to to to a question that's kind of facing the US today. Um, you know, data centers have been a big political issue over the over the last um, 6 to8 months here in the United States. And I think there's a general understanding that um, in order to to drive and power the the the AI revolution that's coming, we need to have the the electricity um, and the data center uh, uh, compute capacity um, to to do the training and the inference
8:21of of all this AI. Um, you know, how how do how do you think about this particular issue? um where where are we on the on the curve of of kind of how much we built versus how much we need?
8:31And as government leaders here think about how to prepare their economies and and build the right power and data infrastructure, how should they be thinking about where sort of compute and and power needs are going to be in the in the next few years?
8:44Well, there actually is a quite a crisis of power. So the this this is a in fact this is something if if you um just if you just sort of follow the AI topic on the X platform um which by the way is is where almost all of the AI discourse takes place. Um you you I think you get a very good sense for where things are headed. Um so that's how that's how I get my news and it's it's incredibly good. Everyone who's
9:14anyone in AI posts on X. Um so so so that's why I'd recommend like just just just go on the AI AI AI topic on X and you'll you'll understand all these these things and get a a day dayby-day account of things. The the uh and and and what the consensus is at this point is that the there will be a significant power shortfall uh uh next year. So not like distant future. uh there's expected to be I believe I believe the the consensus
9:43estimate among analysts that uh follows the AI space very closely is that there will be at least a a 15 gawatt uh shortfall of power uh in 2027 for AI chips. So this is perhaps um an obvious uh thing that one would expect to occur because the rate at which AI chips is being produced is is uh has been rising incredibly rapidly. They're sort of rising on the order of 40 40 to 50% a
10:12year. But the but the power available outside of China has been rising at like 10 to 20% a year. So obviously the the faster rising thing will will eventually overwhelm the slower rising thing. So um in fact even I'd say at this point there there there are challenges with power even before next year which is why Google and Anthropic and many other companies are actually leasing compute from SpaceX
10:40um because we've been able to turn on um AI better than anyone else so far but this is by by constructing our own power plants is the only way we were able to do it. Um so now now China does have a tremendous amount of electricity but but but uh due to GPU export bands one cannot uh you know establish data centers with the latest chips in China.
11:05So so uh but so really the consideration is what what sort of electricity growth is there outside of China. Um and that is a currently a significant shortfall relative to AI chip production. So there is this this creates an opportunity I think for countries around the world to to to save to to to sort of if they're interested in AI data centers um to to to construct uh a lot of power um and uh
11:33and offer that to uh AI companies um and in exchange of course these AI data centers would be would be taxed and and have to pay you know reasonable fees and stuff. uh but it does create an opportunity for for a lot of countries.
11:49Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time. It meant a lot that you could join us here and uh really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
11:55You're most welcome. Thank you.
11:57Thank you. Um great. Now we'll be hearing from uh David Saxs as a former White House AISAR and my co-chair on the president's council of adviserss for science and technology. He's a successful uh investor and I think uh David understands uh intimately the importance of regulatory clarity and certainty uh for the development of of new industries built on on emerging technologies. So I think he's going to
12:24uh join us in in a second.
12:31Amazing. Great to see you David. How are you?
12:33Good. Good to be here. Thanks for having me.
12:35Uh well we're excited to uh to to have you here. I think you and I have have worked together for a while now on on ensuring that the the US can continue to to be a home of of great innovation, technological discovery. Um I think that the a I mean the kind of opening question for you and just to set the stage a little the core theme that uh that the president is driving for G20 is a return to growth and how all of us as G20 economies can think about um growth as a as a north star and particularly for this meeting how technology can be a
13:05driver of that of that growth. Um so I guess the the opening question for you is um when you think about the the policy conditions that need to be in place to allow innovators to innovate uh to invest to experiment to bring new technologies to market how should all of these ministers here be thinking about that? What are the types of regatory conditions we should have we should have in place in our in our countries?
13:29Well I think uh first of all we do have a AI boom going on in the United States.
13:33I mean the AI boom is is already here and I think this is a very positive thing and something that we should be trying to nurture uh as opposed to to hamstring. Uh just a couple of quick um numbers on this is that uh roughly $800 billion is being invested in the US this year on capex related to building out the infrastructure for AI the compute capacity and that number is expected to
13:59be$ 1.4 4 trillion dollar next year. And every time I see the numbers, they keep getting revised up. We really haven't seen a buildout of this kind of infrastructure. You have to go all the way back to the railroads in the 1800s to to see something of of equal scale.
14:16It's actually even bigger than the fiber buildout uh of the internet. It's it's a it's a new industrial revolution. And I think that if we harness this uh correctly, it's an opportunity for uh for for the US to to re-industrialize, to upgrade its power grid uh to bring back some some manufacturing in these cutting edge areas, which has been a priority of of President Trump. Uh but obviously, I think it's also something that all these other uh all all the other countries of the world can benefit
14:46as well if they uh if they lean into it.
14:50Yeah. I think one of the things that that is is covered in our in our Carolina principles is thinking about the the the policy environment that we can set up to support support innovation. And I think um we have quite a diverse set of members in the G20 who think about sort of how to approach regulation in in kind of unique ways that can can ultimately support their people. When you think about kind of you know how how as as tech ministers we should be thinking about sort of the the regulatory construct. Are there general sort of lessons in the types of things we we should be thinking that the government should be working more on or
15:19less or what is your general advice on or thoughts on on broad tech tech regulation?
15:26Well, I think when we talk about AI regulation, we should just first understand that we're not bereft of of regulation in in this area. I mean, you know, you hear a lot the demands that we have to regulate AI, we have to regulate AI. Look, there's already a lot of laws that apply to to AI. So if if you talk about harms like fraud or discrimination or privacy violations, uh defective products, uh copyright
15:54infringement, uh non-consentual imagery, uh you know, and many other uh types of harms, they're already illegal under existing statutes in the United States, and I'm sure there are similar types of laws in in other countries. So we we already think there's a lot of laws that apply to AI and if we're going to build on them, we should um we should try to build on the laws and regulatory agencies that we already have. So for
16:23example, greater transparency, disclosures, audits, things like that might be a good idea. Um we also have antitrust law to prevent anti-competitive behavior by monopolies or duopolies. I think it's a little early in the development of this market to say that that is the the the current situation, but we do know that technology markets sometimes have a tendency to to monopolize or or become duopolies. And if that does happen, we have tools again to prevent anti-competitive behavior. So there's
16:53already I think a thicket of laws that apply to AI. The the the one approach that I think we would really oppose um that we think would be a disaster for us in the US is is this.
17:05so-called FDA for for AI uh where you model uh a new uh approval process for AI models after what the FDA has for drugs or what the FAA uh in the US has for uh you know airplanes. Uh the issue there is that um you know new drugs or airplanes take years to get approved. I mean some like 5 years plus. uh whereas if you're talking about the AI industry,
17:34the AI companies are rolling out new models every two months. It's just too dynamic and fastm moving for for that type of uh of approach. Uh and I I don't think we want to hamstring our our innovation that way. I think, you know, I've I've kind of called it I don't know if the the ministers there will will know what our DMV is, but it's our Department of Motor Vehicles and it's kind of notorious in the US for taking a long time. and um you know when you go to get your your your driver's license
18:02or something like that and I I think that any new regulatory agency that has to approve AI product releases will become like a DMV for AI where you know new models get stuck in a long queue waiting for approval. Uh just one final point on this is you know a lot of people wonder what what is the secret sauce behind Silicon Valley? What what has made this such a crown jewel of the American economy? And if I had to boil it down to one principle, it would be
18:31permissionless innovation. That is really the the principle that's made Silicon Valley so successful is that you can have that uh founder who's a college dropout who just creates their product in a dorm room or you take the two founders, you know, they could be PhD students uh who build their product in a garage. Uh you know, and I'm you know, two uh trillion dollar companies were founded this way. you had Meta and then you had uh Google.
18:59And if those founders had to go to Washington to get approval for their products, I just don't know that those founders would have been able to navigate uh that that the sort of uh bureaucratic maze uh to get their products approved.
19:13So this idea of just allowing innovation to happen and then we regulate it later once it becomes more successful, I think that that really has been fundamental to to Silicon Valley success and I'd hate to see us lose that uh you know through through some sort of pre-approval approach.
19:31Yeah, absolutely. I think the one one last question for you is um you know we we heard from Elon just before you and and asked him about sort of the the the data center and power needs that are going to are coming our way both in the US and globally to power the AI revolution. Um and I know you you have sort of thought a lot about this this data center issue here in the United States. President Trump put out a statement yesterday on on uh on data centers as well. you know, I'd love your thoughts and and to this group on advice as as they think about this buildout and
19:59and and the best way to be able to, you know, provide the the infrastructure that we need for for for uh for AI, but also do so in in in a way where um we can bring communities along. So, how do you think about this this data center issue both in the US and globally?
20:14Well, this is this is certainly a hot topic today. I know it's become controversial. Let me just make a couple of points about this. So, you know, echoing what President Trump said, uh, so here here are some facts about it.
20:25That data centers, if done right, they bring electricity costs down, not up because the AI companies will generate net new power generation. That's really the key is obviously if you make uh the AI companies compete for power or electricity with local residents and just plug into the grid, that could cause electricity prices to go up. But if you allow them to generate their own power, then they will not only generate what they need uh and they can do that so-called behind the meter, but they can
20:53actually contribute the excess back to the grid and that brings electricity cost down. It also provides uh the you could say the sponsorship to make uh long needed grid upgrades. So it provides the investment to to do that.
21:08Um, so I, you know, I think that again, if done right, what we're seeing is that local communities benefit from, uh, from from from these data centers. Uh, we're seeing hundreds of thousands of new construction and skilled trade jobs uh, as a result of them. And we're seeing that counties that embrace data centers are seeing reduced property taxes. Uh, for example, residents of of Laon County and Virginia and the US are paying $6,000 less on average in property taxes
21:37because they have the AI companies picking up that that tab. Now just one one last point on this is that even though I think the administration has pointed out and President Trump has pointed out uh the ways in which data centers can be a very good deal for local communities, we haven't done anything to try and force local communities to accept data centers they don't want. I think I'm seeing some fake news around this. Uh Michael, as you know, because we worked on our national
22:06AI policy framework and then the president signed an executive order in December of last year, uh the president expressly said in his executive order that uh we would not the federal government should not preempt the decision of states uh with respect to data centers. It is fundamentally a local decision and we respect that and have done nothing to change that. uh even though we do think that ultimately that there is a good deal to be had there for local communities if they lean into it.
22:35Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time and uh it means a lot that you could join us uh today. Really appreciate it, David.
22:41Thanks, Michael. Thanks for having me.
22:43Thanks. Um, and for our uh uh last speaker, uh it is my uh privilege to introduce Bob Mumgard. Uh as the co-founder and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the world's largest fusion energy company, Dr. Mumgard is the perfect person to talk to about the full life cycle of emerging technologies and moving innovation from experiments in the laboratory to commercialization and world transformation. So, thank you
23:12much. Thank you so much for joining us uh Dr. Mumgard.
23:16Glad to be here. Thank you very much Dr.
23:19Um wonderful. Well, in in the Carolina principles that uh the G20 nations have have agreed to, we outline how governments can accelerate the development of emerging technologies.
23:29And I think what's so unique about uh your technology is uh it's something that um years you know years ago there wasn't a lot of private sector uh investment in it. and uh you know how do you see the you know policy decisions um in the US or the policy environment here have allowed you to raise capital to build and to ultimately develop um fusion tech right so you know fusion tech it doesn't suffer from a a market pull issue in in the future we know that intelligence and
23:58energy are the drivers of the economy so there's plenty of people that want advanced energy technologies those markets are well established but the barrier to creating products in those markets is how do you take deep science?
24:12How do you couple that with capital? How do you put that into organizations that can both, you know, stay true to that science, build on it, scale, and get to the point where they can demonstrate meaningful results and eventually a product. And and these products are billion-dollar level products. These are not consumer grade or software products.
24:31As Elon said, moving atoms is very very different than moving bits. and moving atoms at 100 million degrees is different than just moving atoms. And so that requires a a really really well-tuned innovation environment. You have to have the capital sources. You have to have the scientific expertise, but then you also have to have the grease uh the glue that the government can provide to string that together. So in the fusion industry today, um there's over 50 companies and over 14 billion of
25:00private investment. If you go back 10 years ago, that did not exist at all.
25:05And of those for that 14 billion, the vast majority of that and of the companies is in the United States. And CFS, we're the largest of those about $4 billion. And we're building uh you know a facility outside of Boston that in the previous generation would have been like a Manhattan project government size facility. Um the reason that's been able to happen is because the government has been a a partner in this, not a restraint. And so a couple examples. Um,
25:34one [clears throat] on the regulatory side, what is how do you license a fusion power plant? That was, you know, four years ago a completely un untested question. And it would have been easy to say, well, let's figure all that out exactly and build a whole new structure all up front that was very prescriptive.
25:52That would have been wrong because we don't know what this technology is. We don't know the issues at the detailed level, but we do know enough to protect the public. So instead what we said was in the United States in the UK let's look at the hazards let's take the closest relevant example that already exists in our case particle accelerators and make sure that fusion fits in there and provide the certainty that regulation is not going to stop this at the infant at the early stage we're
26:20going to have enough room to be able to get the first products out and that gave the certainty to investors to put billions of dollars into this by removing a obstacle that everyone has seen and advanced new technologies before. Another piece of this was taking uh the existing publicly funded research that has built up expertise and finding ways to partner with that between the private and public sector. It would have been easy to say well the government
26:49should go and build the first generation of power plants, but that's a path to nowhere. Those power plants never make it to the market. we sort of throw it over the fence and there's no one to catch it. Instead, we can say, let's take the expertise that's been developed and let's do public private partnerships, provide access to that expertise in ways that preserve intellectual property so that companies can form and build on top of that. Let's make it so that the capital, some help
27:19for the earliest ideas can flow into the bigger ideas that can attract them additional private capital on top of public capital. And that bootstrapped up almost all the US fusion companies.
27:30Yeah. Know I think that's that's a really great point. I think one that that you know we stress a lot that is these new technologies um start to be commercialized the knee-jerk reaction of regulators should not be to create entirely new constructs um for regulating them but to think very carefully of sort of what what regulations are already on the books that can apply to that particular technology first. And I think David made that point and I think Elon to to some degree made it. Um, I guess maybe the the the last question for you and I think something that that I think we're
27:58all curious about is is timelines. I think with Fusion that's always been the been the question historically. Um, we've had two important conversations with David and Elon about how important power is going to be for um the AI revolution that is here and is only going to be accelerating in the years ahead. Um, obviously having um fusion as part of the energy mix would be one of the greatest unlocks in human history.
28:20So all of us are are eagerly awaiting uh the the the the commercialization. So how how do you think about it? Um and and and when when do you see sort of the the the real impact happening on on our grid?
28:32Well, you know, the first is to avoid the fallacy that that passes prologue.
28:36So we're dealing with a situation today in fusion but other uh advanced sort of physical technologies where the tool set that's available to the innovator is just so much broader and deeper than it was even 5 years ago. And so when we look at what we can do with large scale compute, with AI, with advanced materials, but also what we can do with like how we organize ourselves, what you know, what do you uh who all do you pull into the tent? What's their previous experience? How have they been trained?
29:04Um that's a whole new generation of people. And you put those two together, we're seeing that you can drastically accelerate things that we used to think took a long time. We saw that of course first in software. We're seeing it now in large scale [clears throat] comput and AI things that even six years ago we thought were a long way off and so we shouldn't deceive ourselves into thinking that things have to go slow. Um now when you look at the the timelines that are happening it's basically how fast can you build things. So we are
29:33building just finishing up this facility in Massachusetts but we're getting ready to start the first commercial power plant construction in Virginia uh just up the road from you. Um, and so that could put Fusion on the grid in the early 2030s. Um, there's a lot of technology that has to be worked out as we go, but the tool set is is well adapted to that technology. If we plan for a longer horizon, so say Fusion is not going to be here to the 50s, like we're not going to go faster. We're
30:02going to make it happen in the 50s. So we should plan for the most aggressive speed we can do and bring all the tools to bear on that. Um, and I think the US has done a good model of that and it's a it's an example around the world where we're seeing uh countries uh shorten up their timelines for fusion, you know, systematically year-over-year as they see the the progress primarily happen in the United States.
30:24No, I I I think it's been incredible to see and the amount of private sector uh investment in in the industry has has been uh unbelievable. And I think uh for any of you who have extra time in in uh in the United States, I I I highly recommend you you come you go visit um you go Bob outside uh outside of B. It truly truly incredible what what is being built um by by our private sector.
30:47So thank you so much for your time. It means a lot that you could join us here today.
31:00So, I think we're going to let the the press flow out and then we can have our uh close press uh discussion as a group.
