True Patriot Love - Are AI Data Centers Canada's Next Gamble？

00:00:00.160 as you go up the work pyramid to more elite jobs this is where things get a little bit different

00:00:05.120 a little tricky what is ai going to do if you need 10 accountants in a big company before do

00:00:11.440 you just need two now because of ai if you need if you needed so many legal secretaries lawyers

00:00:17.680 right do you just need a few like so this this really changes

00:00:21.840 a lot of jobs that people were told were bulletproof are not so much bulletproof anymore

00:00:30.000 Love it or hate it, AI is coming into our lives at a rapid pace from data centers to AI in our daily lives.

00:00:38.780 From Shanghai to Regina, from Louisiana to Grand Prairie, Alberta, AI is changing the landscape, not just here in Canada, but around the world.

00:00:47.080 But how will it change the landscape? To talk more about it, thrilled to be joined, as always, by Paul Micucci. Paul, how are you?

00:00:52.720 Hey, Jim, how are you today? Interesting topic, getting a lot of interesting reviews across the United States, as we talked about before the show.

00:01:00.000 uh ronnie chang from the daily show yeah was a brilliant comedian actor yeah he was doing the

00:01:07.060 graduation speech and you know for those of you watching convocations across the united states

00:01:13.940 over the last three weeks which as we know their schools let out earlier than ours they've had

00:01:19.620 these people standing up saying ai is the future and the students have been panning them they've

00:01:25.820 been booing them they've been throwing things at them so ronnie gets up and he says fai and all of

00:01:32.680 harvard the students stand up and start to cheer that this gentleman is panning it so you know

00:01:39.700 there's an interesting dynamic going on between young people who are starting their careers their

00:01:45.640 thoughts on ai and the future of ai because you know you and i jimmy and not that i'm uh i'm hoping

00:01:52.680 we see it but quite frankly i'm pretty sure we're not going to see we're going to see some impacts

00:01:58.280 of ai in our lifetime yeah and you know we talked about some impacts from medical on a small scale

00:02:05.080 and i think we're going to talk about that in a few minutes but what you know we have these

00:02:09.400 software developers going on podcasts talking about the world changing and robots yeah let's

00:02:16.840 play the clip so people know let's so let's go to the clip right now and then you'll understand

00:02:21.400 and why paul is leading off with this so this is our man from the daily show ronnie doing his thing

00:02:28.080 with our friends at harvard well on the topic of a's by the way um can i just say a i 1.00

00:02:37.680 it's stupid it's so stupid have you tried using it it's always wrong 0.99

00:02:50.800 Like, I asked AI what's the fastest way to get from New York City to Harvard, 1.00

00:02:54.140 and it told me to take Flixbus.

00:02:57.400 Look, a lot of other respected graduation speakers and colleges around America

00:03:02.220 are talking about you guys needing to master AI for the future, okay?

00:03:06.240 I'm here to tell you the mission of your generation is to destroy AI. 1.00

00:03:12.020 Kill it. 0.99

00:03:13.840 To accomplish this, you'll have to capture and reprogram an AI to be on the side of humanity. 0.98

00:03:19.200 then commandeer its own time traveling technology send it back to the past to defeat the current ai

00:03:25.060 before it gains sentience this isn't just graduation day this is terminator 2 judgment day

00:03:31.220 now if you are a young man or woman whose family just spent four or five hundred thousand on a

00:03:39.700 elite college education after for the last 12 months listening to podcasts with people saying

00:03:45.720 by the way your job's gone i can understand that visceral reaction to fai oh yeah oh yeah of course

00:03:52.720 and imagine imagine if you your field was technology but you know all these kids you know

00:03:58.580 i know uh my kids quite frankly as they were you know trying to figure out studying hard trying to

00:04:05.000 figure what to do in school it it basically was going to go into it because there's going to be

00:04:09.900 great jobs in the future in it what and then all of a sudden ai just took your job away

00:04:15.420 and now what now what so quite frankly a robot uh named biff you know who actually can sit at

00:04:22.060 a computer cook me dinner uh we don't need you to actually do programming anymore we don't need

00:04:27.340 programmers anymore we don't need graphic designers did all those jobs that we told these kids to get

00:04:32.700 into so they didn't have to go into the factories um they've been now told are gone and they're

00:04:38.220 going to be replaced because they're the most sedentary routine and now that we're telling them

00:04:42.780 to go back uh go into the factories to do jobs that the robots can't and go learn a trade um

00:04:52.300 you know so you didn't really need to expend the four hundred thousand dollars to be in one of

00:04:58.460 these schools in the u.s you could have quite frankly just gone and got a trade not had to

00:05:03.660 study so hard you could have drank beer smoked weed quite frankly save four hundred thousand

00:05:09.100 dollars and you'd be basically driving a pickup truck and you're in a better off than you are now

00:05:15.100 graduating from harvard you know here's the thing about this whole topic why we thought it was so

00:05:20.060 important to bring up and talk about today paul yeah there's so much unknown i mean there's so

00:05:25.660 many conflicting theories and ideas of what ai is going to do and how it's going to change the

00:05:31.100 workforce in north america in the world that really no one truly knows like they the only

00:05:37.340 thing we do know there's a base foundation of the workforce in north america and you just touched

00:05:43.420 upon it trades robots can't do your plumbing when you have to fix your toilet and lay

00:05:49.660 copper piping or you know pvc piping or do the electrical or build a house that's still

00:05:54.700 that trade work still has to be done now as you go up the work pyramid to more elite jobs

00:06:01.740 this is where things get a little bit different a little tricky what is ai going to do if you need

00:06:07.460 10 accountants in a big company before do you just need two now because of ai if you need if you

00:06:13.800 needed so many legal secretaries lawyers right do you just need a few like so this this really

00:06:19.120 changes a lot of jobs that people were told were bulletproof are not so much bulletproof anymore

00:06:24.680 Yeah, exactly. So now, for a minute, let's see, let's talk about Canada for me.

00:06:29.840 Of course.

00:06:30.160 Interesting, because we've been hearing Kevin O'Leary and a bunch of people, they're here, Jim, and before the show, Jim was taking me through some of the West Coast projects that they're talking about doing, which I find really interesting.

00:06:43.060 And we had the debate before about, are these specific data centers that they're talking about billing for specific projects?

00:06:52.460 Because I think we've got to kind of look at AI on two different levels.

00:06:57.600 So when I look at, you know, the stuff that Elon Musk is talking about is revolutionizing the world, you know, creating 3,000 robots a year or whatever the crazy, 300,000.

00:07:08.840 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:09.160 And then there's creating a data center for medical purposes and creating a data center for specific purposes.

00:07:16.660 Because I think we really got to look at that and say, okay, what is feasible and what is something we can do right now to be beneficial?

00:07:27.160 Yeah.

00:07:27.640 The other stuff, quite frankly, it does.

00:07:30.520 Remember the dot-com?

00:07:31.900 Of course, yes.

00:07:32.660 Yeah, remember the dot-com era?

00:07:34.300 I think it is a lot of dot-coms, and we're going to talk about that in a minute.

00:07:38.220 But when you listen to the chatter about it and the software developers that are coming and talking about how it's going to change the world in the next 36 to five years, 36 months to 60 months, you know, I look at it and think, okay, whatever.

00:07:51.620 But, you know, there are benefits we can get now, which I think are fantastic through AI.

00:07:58.660 And then the other things they're talking about are changing our culture and our economy.

00:08:04.060 I think we have to realistically stop and then talk a little bit about the feasibility.

00:08:09.680 So let's talk about the Canadian project for a minute.

00:08:12.380 There are some big ones that Inc. has been signed, and Premier Moe of Saskatchewan, along with the executives in Bell, Bell Canada.

00:08:20.260 They're building a huge 300-megawatt facility on an empty patch of industrial land south of Regina.

00:08:26.940 Yeah. So they're building that.

00:08:28.960 Talos is building one in Kamloops and one in Rimouski, Quebec.

00:08:32.720 Now, there's a company called Digital Realty, which is turning the old Toronto Star printing press off the 407 in Vaughan to a 700,000 square foot AI-ready facility.

00:08:43.420 So these things are being built.

00:08:45.100 And Mr. Personality himself, Kevin O'Leary, is proposing a $70 billion, 7 gigawatt AI data center campus in Grand Prairie, Alberta.

00:08:55.320 And they're being built.

00:08:57.520 I know Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is building a massive AI data center in northeast Louisiana.

00:09:04.480 But a lot of these companies are looking at either communities with a lot of empty industrial land that's being unused or buildings that once house a lot of stuff that isn't being used.

00:09:16.760 And they're stepping in and filling the void.

00:09:19.600 Yeah.

00:09:20.140 Well, the grid, right?

00:09:22.200 So let's talk about that for a minute.

00:09:23.540 So the Alberta projects, you know, before the show, I took a look at Alberta and I said, okay, what capacity could Alberta really take now?

00:09:32.280 So that's the issue, right?

00:09:34.420 So, and really, they could absorb a cap of 1.2 gigawatts.

00:09:40.660 Right.

00:09:41.840 You know, so that really is a small amount of gigawatts which the grid can absorb.

00:09:46.400 Now, they're talking about building.

00:09:48.080 The interesting thing is they're all talking about building their own hydro, electric generation plants and everything else.

00:09:57.300 Unfortunately, if you really look into it and you do the research, to build a plant, you need turbines.

00:10:04.380 You need blades.

00:10:05.340 You need production of those items through cast systems to actually build them.

00:10:09.760 It's quite specialized.

00:10:11.380 They're not available.

00:10:12.500 And quite frankly, there's three companies that primarily do them.

00:10:15.040 They're not available.

00:10:15.980 No one's doing it.

00:10:17.260 And they're actually sold out to 2030.

00:10:20.760 So anyone getting into this business today really doesn't start getting into the business until 2035.

00:10:28.420 But you have to build the structure.

00:10:30.820 And so, I mean, that's why I think this is real quick, Paul.

00:10:33.440 This is why a lot of these deals by Bell, by TELUS, by all these other hedge funds and other startup companies are being signed now

00:10:40.380 because they realize to get the land, the environmental study,

00:10:44.160 build the structure, get the infrastructure in place,

00:10:46.840 it takes time to get everything in place.

00:10:49.100 This is not something that can be done by next spring.

00:10:52.480 But, you know, it sounds like these are big data centers,

00:10:56.140 but compared to what's going on around the world,

00:10:59.240 these are actually minute data centers.

00:11:02.760 Yes, they are.

00:11:03.300 So they sound huge when you say $70 billion.

00:11:06.440 But when you look at the projects that we're proposing,

00:11:09.240 especially on the west coast right now they'll be very specific so there'll be data centers for

00:11:14.580 medical there'll be data centers for specific they're not going to really for canadians they're

00:11:20.000 not going to change our way of life because well just real quick if as a canadian if they're

00:11:26.100 building a medical data center oh to me that does change our way of life because all of a sudden

00:11:32.720 the overstretched and you know understaffed and overworked medical community in this country

00:11:38.500 can use AI to help better diagnose people

00:11:42.100 in a quicker, more expedient manner.

00:11:44.560 That could save lives.

00:11:45.740 Agreed, agreed.

00:11:46.460 But what I mean, like, for first,

00:11:48.480 you're hearing all these software developers tell stories

00:11:51.040 how, you know, in 36 months, robots are going to come in.

00:11:55.440 They're going to go on the assembly line.

00:11:57.620 They're going to start to assemble everything.

00:12:00.160 So every manufacturing plant will be a robot.

00:12:02.400 But we do not have even close to the grid capacity to do any of this.

00:12:10.380 So when I'm talking about scaling, Jim, I'm talking about the small project, you know, AI center.

00:12:16.340 So when Kevin O'Leary and the guys who are pitching deals on the west coast of Canada right now, they're talking about very small scaled AI data centers.

00:12:25.840 A lot of money.

00:12:27.000 Now, here's the challenge, you know, for them right now, which you're hearing throughout.

00:12:30.940 So forget the electrical grid, forget the water, forget the environmental issues,

00:12:36.060 forget that electrical companies are super hard to deal with in Canada.

00:12:40.840 And you've dealt with them?

00:12:42.400 Oh, great.

00:12:43.060 You know what?

00:12:44.840 Yeah, I have dealt with them on some major projects and getting hydro,

00:12:49.940 because the business I'm in actually does use a lot of energy power, quite frankly.

00:12:55.040 And it's painful, like painful to the point of five years is your horizon on any project.

00:13:02.500 Five years.

00:13:03.000 There's no project, quite frankly, substantially in Canada, just to get your grid changed and get your capacity into your site is a five-year timeline.

00:13:11.820 So that's, you know, that's not, we're not talking just a condo.

00:13:15.060 We're talking, you know, these.

00:13:16.820 And these are big, big, big projects.

00:13:19.440 So they're not even close to the five years in Canada right now.

00:13:22.560 So you take that, all that aside, the economic feasibility of the subscription.

00:13:29.040 So here's the challenge.

00:13:30.700 Even if you were to get that center that supported medical AI, right, we're in a budget deficit.

00:13:39.520 We're in a recession?

00:13:40.500 Oh, I can't say that.

00:13:41.340 Yeah, we're in a technical recession.

00:13:42.540 Technical recession.

00:13:43.060 Yeah, we're in a technical recession.

00:13:44.380 I don't know what a technical recession is.

00:13:45.900 But, you know, you think about it.

00:13:46.860 We were already $70 billion in a deficit.

00:13:50.940 Yeah.

00:13:51.300 You know, the government, we've done it on previous shows, the government has said in this case, you know, medical is done.

00:13:58.060 They've capped it.

00:13:58.920 Even the province of Ontario that just went on their summer break before they left.

00:14:03.200 21-week summer break.

00:14:04.320 21 weeks, you know, enjoy the boating.

00:14:06.920 And so, you know, they just said before they went on, no more money into health care.

00:14:14.140 So biggest province in Canada basically said done.

00:14:17.160 So there's no province in Canada that's actually looking at putting more money.

00:14:21.980 So they're about to load into these AI data centers, which, quite frankly, you've got to think medical is one of the key initiatives.

00:14:29.840 Absolutely.

00:14:30.260 It has to be very prescribed because they're not big enough to do anything on a larger scale that you'd be looking, quite frankly, at getting some money from government.

00:14:42.240 And where is government going to come up with the money?

00:14:44.780 So the subscription model, here's the thing.

00:14:47.160 Take the cost of all these, $71 billion, there has to be a revenue model, subscription model, for him to go out there and raise the money on it.

00:14:57.480 So he's saying, I'm going to go to the private market, probably not the public market, right?

00:15:04.000 There could be some people, I guess, eventually they will take it public if they can figure out a subscription model after it's built that actually can garner revenue.

00:15:12.200 But quite frankly, if we treat these like public utilities, we don't have the money to do them.

00:15:18.200 So if they get built and we can't use them for anything.

00:15:21.200 Well, think about this, Paul. You're saying the hospitals are tapped out.

00:15:25.200 All summer, if you live in Ontario, all you hear about is a charity bake sale, a walk-a-thon, a golf event, a lottery,

00:15:34.200 just trying to scrape up a few extra dollars to keep these hospitals running.

00:15:38.200 Exactly.

00:15:39.200 all the whole summer and that's like in every province in canada so where would they have the

00:15:43.440 money for a subscription to a hedge fund on ai medical data center well you'd have to cut something

00:15:50.640 you'd have to cut i was just going to go there thank you so you'd you'd have to go and you'd

00:15:54.640 have to say okay you're going to have half the hospitals or half the doctors at half the nurses

00:16:00.480 half the you know there's listen as much as uh you know it is a complicated business because

00:16:05.760 medical is tough but it's not a super complex you know you build a medical center you bring in the

00:16:12.480 staff you care for the people and you use the equipment to try to treat them so it is it is

00:16:17.840 a fairly process driven but it's a basic model right complications is research because you're

00:16:24.400 constantly trying to do research to better you know subscribe better medicines and better

00:16:31.760 treatments but for the most part you would be cutting out people or capital or operating costs

00:16:39.440 in order to accommodate the ai so what he's saying is i'm going to spend 70 billion dollars

00:16:45.280 now we can we can if we're not using medical we can take this analysis to any other sector

00:16:50.400 whether it's government whether it's uh name a sector auto financial like financial

00:16:56.480 plan or something banks yes right we can do anything you could take that model he could say

00:17:02.060 i'm going to use you know i'm going to build an ai data center because the one i'm building out west

00:17:07.500 has to be specific it doesn't we don't have enough energy to do anything on a large scale

00:17:12.440 like an elon musk is talking about so you would be specific an industry specific data center so

00:17:18.560 you do that you take it you have to say okay we're gonna get rid i i just don't think honestly

00:17:25.760 Number one, what I think he's probably not thinking about or they're not thinking about, quite frankly, those environments are highly unionized.

00:17:33.840 So, quite frankly, you would have to go in.

00:17:35.780 So that means people are out.

00:17:37.600 And people aren't going to say, oh, I'm just going to give up my job.

00:17:39.980 Or they're not replaced when they have attrition.

00:17:42.100 When they let go, they stop replacing them.

00:17:44.220 They could.

00:17:44.780 But quite frankly, you know, we're already at these crazy pain points with respect to medical lineups and people and doctors and everything else.

00:17:52.540 If you dial down that barometer anymore, I think you'd have a real challenge in Canada, keeping people not getting protesting and really changing governments over even poorer service.

00:18:06.360 I'm going to bring up something you've said in previous shows about spending priorities in business and in government.

00:18:12.480 And certain things have to be priority one, two, and three.

00:18:15.860 And the other stuff, you have to either dial back or cut.

00:18:18.820 Right. Unfortunately, the future, whether we like it or not, China and other countries around the world will start crushing us because they're building these massive AI data centers.

00:18:29.840 So one thing we have a leg up over Europe and other countries is huge expanses of space to build these.

00:18:39.040 We've got the space, whether it's Grand Prairie, Alberta, which is five hours northeast of Edmonton,

00:18:44.240 or southern Regina, which I've been through, with huge expanses of empty space to build things like this.

00:18:50.740 And that is the one advantage Canada has.

00:18:53.700 So as much as it's painful, maybe this is where the federal government says this has to be a priority for the country's future.

00:19:01.340 And maybe we need to spend less money on this and this in the federal budget and start focusing and help get these built.

00:19:09.140 Well, then, so what you're really saying, so this is an interesting thing where I think this leads, the economic model to this inevitably is a, it's a utility.

00:19:19.820 Right.

00:19:19.980 So what I think these AI developers, I'm going to call them, you know, not using any names, but I think what they're really saying is, quite frankly, I want to make this, I want to do this.

00:19:32.440 I want you to subsidize it.

00:19:33.920 I want the public to subsidize it because we need to be afraid of what China is doing. 0.99

00:19:38.980 We can't deny what they're doing. 0.98

00:19:40.760 Well, no.

00:19:41.320 Yeah, because, I mean, it is a threat. 0.84

00:19:43.680 So say China's super, you know, China has been increasing their electrical grid.

00:19:49.280 Out of the whole world, China's been the one country that, quite frankly, has year on year seen massive increases in their electrical grid.

00:19:57.700 They've put their mind to it.

00:19:59.680 The rest of, you know, the world's been flat for the most part, you know, seen moderate growth.

00:20:04.620 We've probably, as Canadians, we do a really good job for what we need as far as producing nuclear and hydroelectric.

00:20:11.560 But, you know, the U.S. is terrible at it right now.

00:20:15.560 They've been terrible at it for years.

00:20:17.460 So they're doing a good job.

00:20:19.020 So you think about it.

00:20:20.960 They end up getting chips.

00:20:22.540 They get memory storage.

00:20:24.080 They produce the power.

00:20:26.140 They figure out a way to change 10 industries.

00:20:30.620 Again, they'll never get it to scale to what the software developers are talking about it.

00:20:36.080 They might get driverless cars.

00:20:37.620 They might get medical.

00:20:38.520 They might get robotics in some manufacturing industries.

00:20:44.460 Okay.

00:20:45.180 So they'll have rebalanced their economy, right?

00:20:51.080 I think what a lot of these developers are talking about is worst-case scenario.

00:20:56.920 When you actually listen to them, if this happens, if this happens, yes, AI, as we know it,

00:21:06.280 and artificial intelligence in these data centers are going at a rapid pace.

00:21:10.520 But to the point where they're talking about where it's 25% unemployment

00:21:14.420 and all these jobs are gone, we're a ways away from that in our society. 0.97

00:21:19.120 So say China gets there first. 0.97

00:21:21.040 So let's talk about this. 0.69

00:21:22.060 This is an interesting discussion because everyone's like, well, China,

00:21:25.020 that's the argument we're using to get into it. 0.99

00:21:26.960 The argument we're using is China is doing it, so we got to do it, right? 0.90

00:21:30.260 Okay, so China does it.

00:21:32.240 So we look over and there's a whole bunch of people unemployed in China.

00:21:36.280 And what do they do?

00:21:39.740 The Americans say, well, you're not bringing anything here, because quite frankly, we don't

00:21:45.000 believe in that model.

00:21:47.260 We have a few AI centers, but quite frankly, we want our people working.

00:21:51.520 We've taken another approach.

00:21:53.940 Canada is a small country.

00:21:55.140 Quite frankly, Mexico, I guarantee Mexico will do AI centers, but not on a big scale.

00:22:00.740 So North America-wise, you'll have kind of mixed bag.

00:22:04.040 AI data center light compared to China.

00:22:07.160 Yeah, exactly.

00:22:07.840 So then they're going to be sitting there.

00:22:10.000 Europe is, I don't know, all over the place.

00:22:13.540 I don't know anyone else who's going to do it. 0.98

00:22:15.640 So then you'll have a bunch of the Chinese will be sitting there trying to figure out where to sell their products they're building so efficiently at that point. 0.96

00:22:23.960 Because people will be like, well, yeah, you did that, but I don't know what you're going to do.

00:22:27.700 So I think they're challenged.

00:22:30.080 Yeah, great.

00:22:30.660 You can build cars faster.

00:22:32.560 You can use robots.

00:22:33.380 you can get there faster are you going to sell it because quite frankly no one's going to take it

00:22:38.660 if you got there first and you're hopping a competitive advantage and you didn't let me get

00:22:42.860 there why would I give it to you I mean from a Canadian perspective we just signed a deal

00:22:47.680 a lot 49,000 of these electric cars yeah I mean I think the base model will sell for about 25,000

00:22:56.380 Canadian and for a lot of Canadians that's the only way they could afford an electric car

00:23:01.380 because the other prices are just too expensive.

00:23:04.380 So, you know, but when you hear a story this week, Paul,

00:23:09.020 that if you drive that car to the U.S. border,

00:23:11.440 they won't allow you to enter the USA, how does that change things?

00:23:15.140 Because that was brought up today by the American administration

00:23:17.900 that if you drive one of those Chinese-built electric cars

00:23:21.000 to the Peace Bridge or the Gordie Hub Bridge,

00:23:23.720 they're like, you're not going.

00:23:24.700 You're not coming over.

00:23:25.700 No, no, he's adamant.

00:23:27.760 Well, and that's, again, those are the negotiations that need to take place.

00:23:32.340 That's not a short-term issue.

00:23:34.060 No.

00:23:34.600 So that's not happening.

00:23:35.600 So, again, using the argument that China is going to be the world leader in this, 0.82

00:23:40.280 they're going to hop ahead of us, therefore we need to do it. 0.95

00:23:43.080 Time out.

00:23:44.040 Come on.

00:23:44.960 That's not a great argument.

00:23:46.820 I get the argument, and I think they'll always be technologically advanced.

00:23:52.160 There are certain industries like auto that will always be highly in robotics.

00:23:55.740 I get it.

00:23:56.660 There are certain companies that will do better.

00:23:58.540 I think figuring out the world dynamics with respect to AI first.

00:24:03.320 So everyone's got to sit down and say, how are we going to use it?

00:24:06.000 That's going to take a long time, Jim.

00:24:08.500 Because they haven't had any big serious talks yet, Paul.

00:24:11.080 And, I mean, the world leaders talk a good game, but have they actually brought in the experts in their respective countries and said, this is the good, the bad, the ugly of AI.

00:24:20.740 Let's focus on the good, try to avoid the bad, and stay away from the ugly.

00:24:24.600 because and this is part of the problem if you went to canadians and said we're going to build

00:24:29.720 these ai data centers in these parts of the country with a focus on health care and this like

00:24:35.160 stuff that we need i think most games go okay yeah that makes sense yeah that makes this a bet that

00:24:40.200 helps the nation it's not going to put me out of work it's going to make me live longer i'm ready

00:24:44.200 for that yeah i'm which is where we're at really like you know and again we all these podcasts

00:24:50.680 where these people get on and they talk about you know there's going to be all these robots and we're

00:24:55.960 going to sit at home and they're going to do everything for us and listen you know if if you

00:25:01.960 listen to all this you're really going down it's a it's great um it's good content it's fine it's

00:25:08.600 great content it's enlightened for some people it's interesting for me it's it's the business

00:25:14.440 model's not there it's a bunch of hogwash you know then you listen you go on and you listen to

00:25:19.720 elon musk and the podcast he does listen i get it you know the fact that he wants to go into space

00:25:25.080 he wants to create solar fields in space he wants to do you know more flights to space than we

00:25:32.280 currently have uh planes leaving airports uh oh you see the jeff bezos rocket the other day testing

00:25:39.480 that didn't go so well well they're all they're all interesting ideas but even he said so this

00:25:44.600 is interesting and when you when you really look behind the the wall of what he's talking about

00:25:49.720 Even he says, listen, to do this at scale, because quite frankly, doing small data centers using

00:25:58.280 electricity and water and challenges and centers across the nation is fine. But to do this at scale

00:26:04.520 and make it big enough, you basically need, it could never be done on earth. So in other words,

00:26:12.200 But you'd have to take, you'd have to create data center power electrical plants the size of Nevada.

00:26:20.380 And already, you think about some of the can-do reactors we have in Pickering and other parts of Ontario.

00:26:26.660 We have some of the world's biggest nuclear reactors.

00:26:29.380 So you're saying you'd have to build one two or three times the size, and the only sole focus is to power the data center.

00:26:35.980 Exactly.

00:26:36.380 Exactly. So, you know, the United States right now has 4,200 terawatt hours of electricity, right?

00:26:43.020 We have 625 hours, terawatt hours of electricity.

00:26:48.560 Which is pretty good when you consider we have a tenth of the population.

00:26:51.320 The population. We've done amazing.

00:26:53.380 And we're going to get better because they're building small modular reactors across parts of the country now in the next few years.

00:27:00.000 And we have a large landmass.

00:27:01.460 So we do have, we've done an amazing job.

00:27:05.480 But quite frankly, we do have specialty areas I believe we can go.

00:27:10.040 I do believe that if we specialize in certain areas like medical and other areas, we can do really well at this.

00:27:16.260 But, you know, to sit there and say that I'm, you know, and my kids should be worried that we're going to be out of jobs, you know, and that they're going to be sitting at home where we started the show.

00:27:27.720 Well, I'll bring a scenario, Paul, maybe our kids' kids.

00:27:31.020 I remember being in high school in the early 1980s when everyone said, well, computers are going to take our job.

00:27:37.740 Yeah.

00:27:38.040 Right?

00:27:38.980 And then it was the Internet's coming.

00:27:40.920 The Internet's going to take your job.

00:27:42.580 That was the late 80s, early 90s.

00:27:44.640 So every 10, 15 years has been a new introduction of a technology, a new thing that wasn't around before, that this is going to take your job.

00:27:54.720 And the people still worked, you know, because there's so many things that actually need human beings still.

00:28:00.580 I tend to agree with you.

00:28:03.300 To get to the point where the robots and the AI can do the work that all these human beings do,

00:28:09.520 we, I mean, how much power, A, would we have to create?

00:28:14.020 How much brain power would we have to, I mean, we're so, we are, that may happen someday.

00:28:19.260 Is it 50 years? Is it 100 years? I don't know.

00:28:22.160 Yeah, no, listen, is AI going to be smarter than humans?

00:28:26.280 Yeah, sure it is.

00:28:27.080 So in the lab, I think it all gets proven out, quite frankly.

00:28:30.580 yeah you know it'll happen you know their math skills their english skills their language skills

00:28:36.500 will be much more superior to the average human being or the even the most the smartest human

00:28:42.180 being but quite frankly what do you do with that at some point and given the ability uh

00:28:48.900 or inabilities to get the resources to build the power to build the plants we're just not

00:28:55.060 equipped to do it at this point so no matter what we can what we build whether how much uh we can

00:29:00.980 develop a robotics we're not going to get there in this this is a 50 to 100 year program quite

00:29:08.740 frankly that may be at the end of that but in our lifetime no so but imagine our kids lifetime

00:29:14.740 probably not the canadian pension plan and so many canadians rely on that money every month

00:29:21.220 Imagine they had an AI data center dedicated to the Canadian pension plan to make the right financial decisions and right investments.

00:29:28.380 And all of a sudden, instead of 5% or 6% return, it's 15% or 20% and more and more money is going to the pension plan, meaning more and more Canadians have a financial safety net when they retire.

00:29:39.560 But to me, I think most Canadians would sign up for that.

00:29:42.500 Oh, sure.

00:29:43.080 Well, and some of that already exists.

00:29:44.640 Quite frankly, you know, they do have programs that actually are scheduled for this.

00:29:50.300 Oh, is that right?

00:29:50.320 Okay.

00:29:50.420 So they're hopped ahead.

00:29:52.240 The challenge is a lot of investment today is milliseconds, right?

00:29:55.460 So it's actually everyone trying to gain a millisecond on another millisecond.

00:29:59.200 And so that is the interesting part of all the trading dynamics that go on in the world.

00:30:05.620 But think about it, Jim.

00:30:08.580 If we can't even tool up our electrical grid in a decade,

00:30:18.800 So, assuming we can't even get to the point where we're even at a basic level of power requirements to do specific AI, that will take us a decade.

00:30:30.760 How long is it going to take us to build something substantially to start to replace human beings?

00:30:36.940 You know, that's where I think, quite frankly, and, you know, we hear about self-driving cars and all these things.

00:30:45.120 very specific purposes you know the way they do them which is very interesting if you watch kind

00:30:51.960 of the way they power those cars they actually um tap into the grid and off hours and then they

00:30:58.980 store the energy and reuse it throughout the day okay that's cool so but to do that you need battery

00:31:06.040 requirements so again the cost the space the the technology the battery replacement the battery

00:31:14.140 disposal, the waste, the sewage, the water requirements, you know, again, once you get

00:31:20.780 into battery technology and harnessing that and cooling it, there's so many other issues you got

00:31:27.680 to deal with. Therefore, you know, when I mentioned earlier, let's go down into Nevada and start to

00:31:32.200 build AI centers, what's too hot? So quite frank, climate is not great. Our climate probably better

00:31:38.200 suited. Here's another challenge, Paul. China, they'll build 30 coal-fired electrical plants

00:31:46.120 that they don't care. In Canada, it's quite obvious, everything's got to be carbon-free.

00:31:52.120 It's got to be hydroelectric from a waterfall or a nuclear power plant or wind or solar.

00:31:58.280 There's no way ever, ever in Canada would they ever say yes to a coal-fired power plant,

00:32:05.800 and they're building them by the dozens in china to power so much of their stuff that's one advantage

00:32:11.240 and one difference between the two societies and the two mindsets yeah so here we are trying to

00:32:16.280 be carbon free and change the world and they're building coal plants which again we've talked to

00:32:22.040 you know that is one of the big complaints you know that people have had about you know switching over

00:32:27.720 to electric cars look at that you know interesting you know to watch you know the fact that we're

00:32:32.680 having this discussion how long we've been talking about electric cars well it's 20 years 20 years

00:32:40.600 how successful are we right now i'd say we're not as successful as we the the experts thought

00:32:47.320 we would be 20 years ago but if i think in the last five years it's in my neighborhood in my

00:32:53.400 life in my travels i see more electric and more hybrid cars than ever before and that's the big

00:33:00.360 thing is that hybrid gas-powered electric so because they make a distinctive sound when you

00:33:06.520 engage the transmission and they start driving so I'd say over half the vehicles in my travels now

00:33:13.240 are either hybrid or electric. Yeah, I have a hybrid as well. Yeah so we didn't get there fully

00:33:21.640 right again we partially got there so my guess is you know we're going to aim for the stars of space

00:33:29.400 and what we're going to do is we're going to be happy to get you know to the moon but wherever

00:33:35.000 we end up here we're going to end up somewhere in the middle i'm hoping it'd be a benefit any more

00:33:40.040 conversation you know these conversations about ai taking jobs and ai doing this and ai doing that

00:33:47.240 i think we got to start to temper a little because what we're doing is we're demotivating

00:33:51.320 we started to show off talking about young people graduating and their loans and everything what

00:33:56.920 What we're starting to do a little bit is we're demotivating a group of people

00:34:01.320 that I think we have to be careful.

00:34:03.760 Absolutely.

00:34:04.360 That is the last thing society we ever want to do.

00:34:07.740 Exactly.

00:34:08.360 And we're just giving cannon fodder for them not to be productive.

00:34:12.280 So how about this?

00:34:13.620 How about we tell those young people who sacrifice so much to get the degree,

00:34:18.960 instead of saying you're going to lose your job,

00:34:20.580 we are going to give you a job where you use AI to make the world a better place.

00:34:24.380 Wouldn't that motivate them better?

00:34:26.260 Yeah.

00:34:26.440 Yeah, so basically you can get into medical, AI, rehab, you can do this, you can transition that.

00:34:33.200 AI for infrastructure, AI for clean water, AI for, like, stuff that we need.

00:34:38.000 Well, and, you know, chip development, even chip development, you look at, you know,

00:34:42.940 Samsung is doing a ton of development on chips right now.

00:34:46.740 Really, to get to a capacity where we have an overabundance of chips is going to take five years to a decade.

00:34:53.720 So we're still so far behind on that.

00:34:55.800 We don't even talk about memory.

00:34:58.500 So quite frankly, we talk a lot about chips.

00:35:01.060 We talk a lot about electricity.

00:35:02.280 We talk a lot about water.

00:35:03.840 We're not talking about memory storage.

00:35:05.480 So there's another issue that we haven't even captured.

00:35:07.940 Good point.

00:35:08.620 Again, you know, we talk about robots replacing us,

00:35:12.380 but we don't talk about anything with the nuances.

00:35:16.020 And to me, it's because a lot of the people we're actually hearing from now

00:35:20.480 are software developers that are really happy

00:35:24.860 that this is taking off this is a great business for them quite frankly they can get jobs where

00:35:31.180 they go and they build ai matrices and programs and they they get into it and it it potentially

00:35:39.260 will be a great five years for them but quite frankly when you get into this is where software

00:35:44.100 meets hardware so this is kind of the guy the guy who designs the building and the guy who actually

00:35:49.060 goes and pours the concrete and puts the steel in realizes that the guy who designed the building

00:35:54.900 never built a building right the hvac won't work and the plumbing's a bit of a mess and the parking

00:36:00.120 garage is going to crumble and now i got to fix it exactly and this is where we're at on this right

00:36:04.500 there's a bunch of philosophical people saying okay i'm going to sit down and come up with all

00:36:08.820 these you know star trek ideas that are going to be great i'm going to go to the moon so many times

00:36:13.540 a year i'm going to do all this stuff i'm going to take solar panels like think about it you could

00:36:18.420 you can go into space great you can create your robots in space so you can create your solar panels

00:36:23.940 your energy you got to then figure out a way to get your energy back to earth we've not they've

00:36:30.660 not figured that out no so what are you gonna do produce it and then do what logistically truck it

00:36:36.660 back to earth like you know what i mean like think about it it is crazy these conversations but we're

00:36:42.740 having them and you know people are like you know they're going to do a fund for this and i'm going

00:36:48.100 to participate in it and i'm like i don't know like you are i can think of other funds i would

00:36:53.540 invest in first yeah i can think of other funds but but again i'm not i'm not when i talk about

00:37:00.180 ai what i'm trying to say is i i like the concept i'm not against ai i'm again i'm for the development

00:37:05.940 i think we have to be cautious you know already so this is an interesting remember aaron brokovich

00:37:11.060 of course yeah of course academy award-winning movie julie roberts great movie and a true story

00:37:17.140 true story i'm getting ready for the show and the story was about um oh what was it cancer and it

00:37:24.020 was about uh it was the toxic water yeah toxic water caused by uh it's going to come to me

00:37:31.380 nick is it who's the aaron brockovich company uh i look at it i thought it was dupont is it

00:37:39.380 no i don't know if it was dupont i'll look it up if you could look it up that'd be great

00:37:43.300 but you know she's already on the case she already has a website she's already trying to think so

00:37:49.460 you know if you live let's take a specific gas and electric company yeah and it infected the

00:37:56.500 groundwater contaminated right okay i was i was thinking it was something else but you know she's

00:38:02.900 already on the case she's already got a website she's already talking about the impacts of people

00:38:07.460 So already the legal beagles are already on the trail of this saying, okay, if they're going to build an AI center by you, number one, your home values, your health, you can already see the cases and slowing down and where do you build it, how do you do it?

00:38:25.040 You know, nuclear centers still have that, you know, nuclear power is great, but quite frankly, there's all kinds of settlements go on all year long for people who show up and say, I took my pills because I live 10 kilometers from that nuclear plant.

00:38:40.280 I took them like you asked me to, you know, the ones they send them, the ones they send people in the mail just to say, take this because your radiation might be higher than other people.

00:38:49.820 And then they show up and say, you know, I got cancer at 50.

00:38:53.680 Right.

00:38:54.080 But they still have settlements going on for, you know, those power plants.

00:38:59.980 But having said all that, there are still communities in North America who are welcoming this with open arms.

00:39:05.540 There was a story recently where Mark Zuckerberg and Meta went to a porous area of northeast Louisiana to set up an AI data center with a crumbling town.

00:39:16.000 You see it with the border, and they're like, I'm bending knee.

00:39:19.000 What do you need?

00:39:19.800 Because they're like, oh, we need jobs to build it, and we need people to run it.

00:39:23.440 and it's going to save the community oh yeah and now but now at the same time north bay they tried

00:39:28.420 to build one in north bay and ontario and they got so much pushback from the locals are like

00:39:32.540 they had to tap out and kill the project so some communities will hold their nose and say yes to

00:39:39.260 it because they're so desperate but others won't but i can see the the there's the air and brock

00:39:43.900 of its side not in my life no way and then there's the mayor of these towns and poor areas of the

00:39:49.460 north america like please bring it uh tesla got some uh pushback in tennessee and jumped the

00:39:55.780 border to memphis sorry they jumped the border over into uh uh sorry i got that wrong but uh

00:40:05.140 because memphis is tennessee yeah exactly they went to mississippi they went to mississippi so

00:40:09.540 right right so they actually got some and they went over to mississippi sorry but the you know

00:40:14.900 it's interesting to see how they're jumping to find you know which industries do that right

00:40:19.780 whether it's any industry that has challenges gaming did it gaming did it uh for years you

00:40:26.900 know they would go town to town until someone said please build a casino here and the next thing you

00:40:30.660 know boom they were in right because you could drive in in rural parts of north america canada

00:40:36.020 us you're like oh like on the 401 outside of belleville there's one in the middle of nowhere

00:40:41.140 yeah and you're like what is it there's a casino there you know you drive by it and it happens all

00:40:45.380 the time yeah they were willing to accept it in and they let them come in and quite frankly

00:40:50.260 this is the same thing they're going to go from place to place till they find a place to put them

00:40:54.580 without the opposition without the opposition and we'll get built but at the end of the day

00:41:00.500 but they're not going to get built to the extreme uh ends that we're hearing about so when we have

00:41:06.900 these g20 summits that we see in the news in the cbc and bbc and whatnot paul and they're talking

00:41:12.660 about all this stuff i think on the agenda ai data centers and the future ai has to be one of

00:41:19.220 the top things because it's happening you can't deny it so while you're talking about the economy

00:41:24.900 and the war in iran let's talk about this what are we doing what's our strategy what do we want to

00:41:31.380 avoid. Have you seen anything like that, a group thing from all these countries? That's a conversation

00:41:37.860 that has to be had. Yeah. Well, if it is, so here's the interesting thing. If it's not had,

00:41:45.460 does it ever grow as an industry? That's what, you know, there might be someone take off on it,

00:41:49.300 but then the world is becoming isolation. It's an isolationist theory or isolationist strategy

00:41:55.940 happening now yeah so you know we talk on shows about the western hemisphere versus the rest of

00:42:01.220 the world we talk about quite frankly uh military and development and certain and if you know iran

00:42:08.900 goes a different way so all these geopolitical issues will tie into what's going to happen on

00:42:14.180 the ai front absolutely so as they're hopefully you know those get resolved and calmed down

00:42:21.060 And when those are calmed and the world is a little nicer place, right, than right now,

00:42:29.380 then it's time to sit down and say, okay, where does AI fit? Because if one leaps ahead and,

00:42:35.860 for example, China, does it go back to a geopolitical mess again? Do we actually stop 0.69

00:42:42.180 trade? Do we stop interaction? What happens? Well, think about last week, there was a Chinese

00:42:49.380 high-ranking official in Ottawa, Mark Carney, and they were not allowed any questions.

00:42:55.380 The press were thrown in there and they had 60 seconds to set up and take a quick video or photo

00:43:01.780 and then thrown out immediately. So we're not even, reporters aren't even allowed to ask them

00:43:07.700 questions. Maybe they wanted to ask the guy a question about AI and coal-fired hydro plants

00:43:12.820 and whatnot, but that was forbidden. And Carney said, no, no, no, no. He didn't want to offend

00:43:17.060 So right now, Carney and the liberal government, a lot of governments, are so in bed with China when it comes to business, they really will do anything to avoid offending them.

00:43:27.180 Oh, yeah, of course.

00:43:28.700 Well, but again, the geopolitical issues, it's fine for us to sort of in isolation go off and talk to different people and do trade deals and everything else.

00:43:38.920 As the geopolitical issues get resolved and, you know, the war, current wars going on get resolved, where that shakes out, I think we're very naive to think that's not going to impact those negotiations as we go through it.

00:43:52.820 And therefore, I think we're very naive to actually think that AI right now is, other than on an isolated basis, is a truly viable business.

00:44:02.520 I think it could be.

00:44:04.180 I think you've got to let those things play out first.

00:44:06.640 Once those things play out, then I think your point, Jim, about an active discussion of how AI plays on the world format, how it impacts, you know, other than military, I think is a discussion that each country has to have.

00:44:19.900 and but right now the one thing that is happening and you just brought it up

00:44:23.740 militaries in the world are using ai planning for logistics picking targets they're using ai to help

00:44:30.460 their decision making and and they're looking at patterns of movement and where the where the enemy

00:44:36.540 is and where they're not and using that to not waste time and resources of potential lives when

00:44:42.540 they attack someone i i mean we'd be naive to think that ai hasn't been a huge help to ukraine

00:44:48.140 in their battle against russia is being used all the time between the usa and iran but then it

00:44:53.020 becomes then the interesting part it becomes a world of whose ai is better than yeah so now

00:44:59.340 you're creating a sub industry within the military machine of ai for military that actually is trying

00:45:06.940 to build ai that's better than another country's ai because we can't let them get better exactly so

00:45:13.180 So that's a never-ending battle where you never really know.

00:45:18.300 It's the nuclear conundrum, right?

00:45:20.540 Yeah, it is.

00:45:21.040 Do they have nuclear weapons?

00:45:22.140 Do they have nuclear weapons?

00:45:23.200 Do they have better AI?

00:45:24.580 Who has the best AI?

00:45:25.740 Oh, they have great AI.

00:45:26.780 I know they can do that, but I don't really know.

00:45:28.720 So then, quite frankly, all we're doing,

00:45:31.340 and that's to your civil conversation after the geopolitics is taken out of it,

00:45:35.640 is this around the table saying, listen, are we going to be talking about,

00:45:39.020 at some point nuclear is going to you know we'll talk less about nuclear and talk about quite

00:45:45.020 frankly how we we actually reach ai compacts and maybe potential ai restrictions you can only build

00:45:52.620 so much and do so much with it and like we have with restrictions on certain weapons in the world

00:45:57.660 we'll have ai restrictions right so then we're going to be having potentially ai wars because

00:46:02.540 someone broke the restriction right right at some point we have to kind of go time out right

00:46:08.060 Right. You know, how does this get us in any better place?

00:46:13.820 Yeah, I just maybe I'm cynical.

00:46:15.900 I don't have faith in politicians always making the right decision, having the right conversation.

00:46:20.020 So I would hope that because I don't think a lot of these conflicts will be resolved soon.

00:46:26.400 These are conversations these world leaders have to have sooner rather than later.

00:46:30.480 And what they know all the big speeches and all the big we're going to do this.

00:46:33.760 I'm going to do that. Great. But let's just roll up the sleeves and sit down and like, hey,

00:46:37.160 let's talk about AI. How does it affect your country? What's good? What's bad? We need to

00:46:41.980 have those big discussions with how it affects the world because it's affecting everyday people

00:46:47.220 all the time. And it's just going to get more and more through time. I agree, Jim.

00:46:51.900 Yep. That's why we don't need AI. He's AI.

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True Patriot Love - June 14, 2026

Are AI Data Centers Canada's Next Gamble？

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