Hey, everybody, it's Anna Palmer from The Daily Punch.

Welcome to the first edition podcast for our Ons to Watch.

Innovating with AI project this month, we're laying out the state of play,

engaging in key interviews with leaders in the space and the outlook on what's to come.

A big thank you to Google for making this podcast and product possible. You can check out the

full project at punchbowl. News. Today, I'm going to be speaking with Ben Brody, one of our amazing tech policy reporters

at Punch Bull News, who's going to be discussing the ones to watch AI and energy innovation.

As Ben writes, artificial intelligence policy is quickly spreading into the critical domain of

energy. It's a two-sided issue. On one hand, AI computations and data storage

require a lot of electricity, and its boom is expected to increase global power demand. On the

other hand, the technology holds a lot of promise for boosting energy innovation and efficiency.

Today, we're going to look at the interconnection between AI and energy innovation

and what's on the horizon for the sector as the technology moves the world into the future.

Ben, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you so much for having me.

All right, let's talk about the state of play. Set us up for where things are when it comes to

AI and energy today?

So I think the key thing, the key number that we have to remember is tripling.

Energy needs for U.S. data centers are expected to triple in just the next five years,

just by the end of the decade.

That's because we're just going to be using AI for so much more, for personal use,

for industry use. There's going to be all kinds of innovation. So this is kind of the main challenge that policymakers at all levels are trying to deal with. We need to deal with how we make,

how we generate more electricity. We also have to deal with how we make, how we generate more electricity. We also

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