Data Centers Aren't Killing the Grid. They Could SAVE It.

Thanks to our partner, @Paypal! Pay zero processing fees on your first $100K in eligible PayPal payment volume. Learn more at paypal.launch.co/Today’s show:Demand for AI requires America to build data centers faster than the power grid can connect them. Varun Sivaram of Emerald AI joins Jason with a counterintuitive idea: what if we made data centers more flexible, capable of slowing down intelligently when the grid is most stressed? (That only happens a few hundred hours each year.)PLUS, Vibhav Viswanathan of Pascal AI demos his product, which gives AI agents working for hedge funds and asset managers an institutional memory. Why can't Claude or ChatGPT do the same job? And what happens to analysts when bots handle the back office admin?Guests:Varun Sivaram on X: x.com/vsiv Emerald AI: emeraldai.co/Vibhav Viswanathan on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/vibhav-viswanathan-13550015 Pascal AI: pascalailabs.com/Relevant Links:Emerald AI's $150M Series A (DatacenterDynamics) → datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/emerald-ai-rais… London trial with National Grid that Varun describes (National Grid) → nationalgrid.com/uk-first-trial-ai-grid-techno… Load Growth," the Duke University study on spare grid capacity for flexible data centers → nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/publications/rethin… AI Energy Management Alliance from Emerald AI, Google and NVIDIA (NVIDIA) → blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-energy-management-all… power-flexible Aurora AI Factory in Manassas, Virginia (DatacenterDynamics) → datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/nvidia-to-deplo… pauses data center grid connections (Utility Dive) → utilitydive.com/news/texas-hits-pause-data-cen… AI careers → emeraldai.co/careersPascal AI's $3.1M seed round (Unite AI) → unite.ai/pascal-ai-raises-3-1m-to-push-the-fro… Mahindra Asset Management deploys Pascal AI's research platform (Frontier Enterprise) → frontier-enterprise.com/kotak-mahindra-amc-dep… Street plans its own AI data center, which Jason brings up (DatacenterDynamics) → datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/quant-trading-f… "Tiger Cub" hedge funds are, like the Pascal customer Vibhav mentions (Wall Street Prep) → wallstreetprep.com/knowledge/tiger-cubsS&P Capital IQ Pro, one of the licensed data feeds Pascal plugs into → spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/solutions/…, another licensed data feed Vibhav mentions → factset.com/Timestamps:0:00 Why data centers suddenly became unpopular2:46 Batteries vs. throttling GPUs vs. moving workloads4:11 Why utilities still pick up the phone4:52 The London teakettle test at football halftime5:56 Throttling AI workloads without users noticing10:40 How much spare room the grid really has13:32 The grand bargain, a fast pass onto the grid17:23 Why America can't out-build China on power20:39 Why off-grid and space data centers worry Varun27:37 Are state data center moratoriums performative?29:45 Pascal AI, AI agents for hedge funds and asset managers35:12 How Pascal differs from ChatGPT and Claude38:54 The proprietary data frontier models can't see42:20 Will AI replace hedge fund analysts?Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:TWiST: twistartups.substack.com/TWiAI: thisweekinai.ai/TWiVC: thisweekinvc.substack.com/Check out all our partner offers: partners.launch.co