Varun Sivaram, founder of Emerald AI, describes field demonstrations of spatial load shifting to relieve local power grid constraints without disrupting AI user experience.
0:00 / 0:25exact quote · 25.9s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“So with Oracle, we showcased migrating AI workloads from one location, Virginia, to another, Chicago. And this was during the data winter, the Dominion winter peak period, the inference queries got rerouted in such a way that you were able to precisely meet the Dominion grids power constraint while utilizing capacity far away while the queries moved within milliseconds halfway across the country.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Varun Sivaram
PredictionNot checkable as stated
AI token costs will asymptotically approach the fundamental cost of power
“I think the answer will increasingly become yes in the future as the cost of inference, the cost of token generation asymptotically approaches the cost of power, which is the only real operational expense input into the Into the cost of intelligence generation…”
Varun SivaramApr 9, 2026▶ 19:00The rise of flexible data centers
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Sivaram: 50-100 GW of AI Data Centers Cannot Be Built Without Flexibility
“We've got 50 to a hundred gigawatts of latent AI demand in the pipeline. It's just not gonna get built unless you have this capability of flexibility.”
Varun SivaramAug 28, 2025▶ 23:54The mechanics of data center flexibility
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Sivaram: AI data centers could consume 25% of US electricity by 2035
“Data centers, which today are about four percent of American energy consumption, AI data centers are about five gigawatts of load, grow to 12% by the end of the decade. AI data centers could be anywhere up to 50 or even more gigawatts, to 25% of American load …”
Varun SivaramAug 28, 2025▶ 27:10The mechanics of data center flexibility
Insight
Mandating more than ten percent clean material procurement by 2030 will fail
“If we, if you try and make it a larger percentage of a supply chain from these enormous buyers early on in 2030, you'll fail. Because the technology simply cannot scale that quickly to meet extraordinary demand.”
Varun SivaramDec 15, 2022▶ 20:51Advance market commitments to decarbonize heavy industry
“Today's generation is based on waste oils, fats, and greases. As you mentioned, Shale, they compete with food crops. They don't have great greenhouse gas reduction. Oh, and by the way, they don't scale. We're just, there's no way we're going to get to, you kno…”
Varun SivaramDec 15, 2022▶ 38:24Advance market commitments to decarbonize heavy industry
AssertionContradicted
Inflation Reduction Act erases green premiums across most heavy industrial sectors
“In all of our different sectors now, cement, steel maybe not aviation fuels entirely, in almost all of our sectors, it is now as inexpensive to build the clean alternative as it is the dirty one, thanks to the IRA.”
Varun SivaramDec 15, 2022▶ 45:21Advance market commitments to decarbonize heavy industry
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, over 200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.