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Schneider Electric/MotivAir Dominating Liquid Cooling, Fermi Raises $680M with IPO, Open Ai Stargate New Mexico w $165B Complex, 47G Zero Gravity Summit

• Wayne M. Aston & David P. Murray • Season 2 • Episode 25

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SPEAKER_00:

Good morning, friends of the show. Thanks for coming back for another episode of More Headlines today. And Dave and I on the last episode just started to dive into a really exciting one because it's a known name, it's a known group we work with. Um Dave, why don't you kick things off? How are you today?

SPEAKER_01:

Good. Good to be here. Welcome. Uh thanks again for joining us, everyone. And we did. We we ended on sort of a should we talk about this? And we'd already yammered on long enough. And so we're picking it up where we left off.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So in season one, you know, we covered this really big announcement of Schneider Electric acquiring a company called Motivaire. Um, if memory serves me, it was like an$840 million acquisition for a con. Uh, I think it was a controlling stake of Motivaire. This was like this is like in maybe the first 15 or 20 episodes of season one. We covered that. Now we've got kind of a a new update on that acquisition that's quite exciting and quite a bit of detail. Dave, I'll let you kind of dive into that headline and let's drill into those details because I'm personally very excited to know about this because we've been waiting. We've been waiting to see what Motive Air brings to the table for Schneider Electric that really you know improves their whole value proposition. And this article really showcases it.

SPEAKER_01:

It it does. Uh so yeah, and we have we've covered it a lot. We covered it when that when it happened that they were doing it and uh when they took a controlling interest in February uh of this of this year, actually. And uh so they just a you know a few days ago uh finally announced what that all looks like and what they're coming to the market with in terms of a a product set. And so I'll I'll read a little bit from the article. It's a really comprehensive article, very good overview of everything happening. Uh, it was on HPC Wire. Uh uh just to give a shout out to those, those, uh, that group for putting this together. Uh Schneider uh Electric Today unveiled its world-leading portfolio of end-to-end liquid cooling solutions for hyperscale co-location and high-density data center environments engineered to enable the AI factories of the future. Available globally, the Motive Air by Schneider Electric cooling solutions meet the power and GPU intensive demands of high-density data centers reliably and at scale. The complete liquid and air-cooled portfolio comprises data center physical infrastructure, including CDUs, RDHX, HDUs, dynamic cool cold plates, chillers, and more, as well as software and services, all designed to handle the thermal management requirements of next-gen high-performance computing, uh, AI and accelerated computing workloads. Uh again, today's announcement provides the first comprehensive look. And, you know, they kind of set it up to talk about, and then I mean, you know, we've talked about the amount of energy per rack, so rack in a data center, and we've seen it explode. And so just to so it says as the industry drives past densities 140 kilowatts per rack, we were talking about I think 96 last year. Yeah, now it's pushing the envelope. Yeah, and now there's provisions being made for few future power densities of a hundred one megawatt and more per rack. So as the AI chips get hotter and denser, data centers require more require liquid cooling to effectively cool hotter workloads and keep critical infrastructure running at peak, uptime and efficiency. Um, as this goes on, cooling can consume up to 40% of uh data centers' power budget. Direct liquid cooling is up to 3,000 times more effective and more efficient at removing heat than air because it captures heat directly at chip level. Deploying liquid cooling technology is complex and requires a true end-to-end approach that accounts for technology sourcing, insulation, and ongoing maintenance. To address these challenges, Schneider uh and Motivaire are providing customers with the most comprehensive data center and liquid cooling portfolio available in the market, inclusive of an all-core cooling infrastructure alongside a supply chain capable of serving global demands. Uh, the quote uh by uh CEO uh Motivare says as data center, quote, as data center cooling has grown more complex in the AI era, our portfolio has consistently evolved to remain capable of serving the infrastructure demands of today and tomorrow, said Richard Whitmore, CEO of Motivaire by Schneider Electric. Today we are today, quote, today we are only we are the only liquid cooling provider to demonstrate proven expertise at the silicon level by co-developing our solutions in collaboration with NVIDIA and other leading GPU manufacturers in collaboration with Schneider Electric. We have created an unmatched portfolio that not only compresses time to market but increases ROI for customers worldwide.

SPEAKER_00:

So awesome, amazing well done, well done, Schneider Electric.

SPEAKER_01:

And yeah, where bravo. Uh so I mentioned some of these things, yeah, and I'll I'll kind of go and give and they gave a breakdown in this article of what these are.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, so the coolant distribution units, the CDUs, not that not to totally no, I I'm interrupting you, so I apologize. Yeah, before we dive into these components, was there anything in the article that you saw that uh touched on water consumption and and how these particular things impact water consumption for data centers?

SPEAKER_01:

No, uh I no, I think it's well, it didn't say anything about it. What we obviously knew, what we know is that this is this is the non-water consumptive. I'm I'm sure there's probably some some hope.

SPEAKER_00:

So this is like this is the waterless era, then the potential will drive that point home. That that's that's also part of very much exciting part of this technology. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

And we know, I mean, we know that there are groups, again, Meta, uh we've talked about a lot, that are looking at uh new projects where they are, you know, maybe the next gen of their data centers will be using exactly this kind of technology or are similar kinds of technologies to get away from the heavy water usage that is you know sometimes is used in certain parts of the country still. Um and I mean here in Utah, actually, at the at the data center, uh the government data center in in uh Utah County, uh we know that's a that's a big water user. And so to get away, especially in areas where water is a premium, to get away from water being used as a cooling source, and this obviously applies to the nuclear industry as well, it's very important. Yeah, yeah. So uh the cooling so the CDUs are designed, uh were designed in collaboration with Top Silicon Manufacturer for seamless integration with next gen processors. The CDU family scales from 105 kilowatts to 2.5 megawatts, placing the technology ahead of market demand by several years. Today, Motivair's CDU technology also enables thermal performance for six of the world's top 10 supercomputers and is certified certified for NVIDIA's latest hardware while being well equipped for future increases in rack density. And real quick, it was explained to us, and I thought it was the most um hit-home explanation of how much heat is coming off these things. Yeah. If you remember what I'm talking about, yes. I think it was in discussions with Gensler, um, because you know, as as an architecture firm who has worked with you know these designs of data centers and things, you know, they have to design for thermal inertia and all sorts of things. And they were explaining it. They said, imagine take you know, take your Traeger, take your favorite grill, crank it all the way up and open the and open the hood. That is that would be the equivalent of like one rack. And that was before that was not like the the racks being proposed. That was the rack of a triple-digit rack. Right. And and now imagine stacking like thousands of them or hundreds of them next to each other. Like this is this is the amount of heat these things are producing. And to me, I was like, wow, that's wow, that that really just sort of like just you know hits you, just we're like, okay, that is a lot of heat because you really don't have a way to conceive of like how much heat you think, okay, heat. I mean, we know we know we have our you know, we have the old towers at home, and you know that they put off a lot of heat, laptops and stuff, but it's hard to conceive of how much heat is being produced off of these racks. And so just to keep that in mind of like that's what we're really talking about. So when they're talking about you know distribution units and they're talking about you know being 3,000 times more efficient and cooling these things down, that's what we're talking about. That's awesome. Uh they've they're they're they've also launched a also getting on a chilled door rear door heat exchanger. This rear door heat exchanger cools rack densities up to 75 kilowatts, making it ideal for power-intensive GPUs. It's rack agnostic design also makes it a versatile solution for any HPC environment. Uh liquid to air heat dissipation unit, perfect for AI accelerators, co-location environments, or labs where water is not readily available. The motive air HDU is the highest performing unit on the market, delivering 100 kilowatts of heat rejection in a footprint of just 600 millimeters wide. It is also capable of creating a water loop, water loop to cool loop to 100 water loop to cool up to 132 kilowatts of cooling capacity, a one-to-one ratio with NVIDIA's NVL 144 computing architecture. Uh, it's also launched a chillers and technology cooling system, the the TCS loops, what it's calling. Motive air and uh closed loop air cool chillers enable operators to save millions of gallons of water usage each year for each for every megawatt of cooling requirement while delivering up to 20% more performance than others other solutions on the market. And then obviously, they've uh introduced a whole software system to operate this, and then a services initiative that then you know uh backs up all of this in every major geography uh around the world. So there you go. And then and then they also followed up saying that they've also you know they've built a global supply chain and they've already undergone rigorous testing. So all of these things since February in the announcement, and Motivare was already working long, and that's why Schneider acquired them, or at least took a large stake in them because of all the good work they were they'd been that had been done and they were doing, and just to expand on that footprint. So this is very exciting in the I believe in the data center space, uh, to have this kind of offering in the market. And given that they've teamed up with NVIDIA to figure out some of this stuff, that doesn't suck. And if anybody's paying paying attention to the moves NVIDIA is making, which are staggering, yeah, uh, is an understatement. Absolutely. Uh the amount of money they're committing and deploying and the kind of infrastructure projects they're involved in. Um, you know, NVIDIA is, I mean, Hawaii is just it's it's amazing to see the moves of that company. Uh, they continue to impress me as as a as a as an organization and how they continue to just not only charge forward, but stay ahead of the curve, drive the market space, set themselves up for success in the future, and then just keep going and going and going.

SPEAKER_00:

I totally agree. I totally agree. I I think you know it would definitely make sense for us to do an NVIDIA company spotlight because there's so much to talk about there. So and and we've got so many, so many tie-ins here to you know, maybe put some good interviews together. I'm gonna I'm gonna make a note that NVIDIA's got to be on the on the list for us to engage.

SPEAKER_01:

Um and if anybody out there happens to be directly connected with NVIDIA, I mean I think we probably have some connections, but please reach out and let us know because we would love to we'd love to chat. I mean, I you know I've I've I've been impressed with how they run their company. Uh I'm from the top down, how they how they move so quickly. And they've just they they seem to uh evolve right ahead of where they need to be evolving, and they are just so reactive to the market space and also proactive and looking at the company. Proactive, yeah. Yeah. And and I like, I just like how they run their company. It's it's a well-run company. Uh different, by the way. I mean, they don't they he doesn't operate the uh Jets, they don't he doesn't operate the company typically, like your typical CEO. There's a lot of differences in in how they structure how they structured management, and I think it's given him given them an advantage in in staying in the market.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, clearly. So and look, here's another interesting thing to bring up. There's been a lot of conversations in social media and in mainstream about efficiencies improving. And does that make a case for power generation demands to also be diminished? I'm gonna say no. I think that when you see racks with this kind of capacity and cooling upgrading to this type of heat profiling, uh, yes, we're gonna find efficiencies, but I think power generation is is it's here to grow and expand. It's not gonna retract from this point forward. I think we're gonna only see power generation needs continue, continue to expand exponentially. And so it's it's really great to see all the technologies advancing to meet it. Agreed.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, and I well, and I've seen that argument for you know, when it first, you know, even this last year, when it when, well, you know, we're gonna hit a point and you know, eventually we're AI is gonna help itself and find all these efficiencies. We're not I just I nothing I have read, seen has convinced me that uh and there's knowing reality, you know, as as efficiencies are found, that just means we're gonna we're gonna fill it with more stuff. We're just gonna do more and more, faster, faster, really, is what that means. Um, I do think, and I think there's other technologies on the horizons that are gonna going to come in uh to I might say vogue. I'm gonna say we're gonna finally see some of the use cases of VR, AR, and XR really start to to make yeah its presence known. And that also has significant commuting computing demands that I don't think have been factored into this yet. Yeah. Um, in addition to the AI loads that are already there. So I I just it's it's not going to be slowing down. It it just isn't. And uh, I mean, at least for the next decade, at least.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we we really saw kind of a uh spike in the market of of um consternation when folks saw what you know, I think it was Huei with their uh their deep seek chip or whatever. Yeah, it was, yeah. Like what was what is it? Well, oh god, what is the implications that's gonna have on NVIDIA and the Blackwell chips and can this be and there were huge claims made and it shook the market. The markets that uh it felt like the market like pushed the pause button for a minute. Oh my gosh, maybe we don't need to build all this generation. No, that's that's not the case. That's not the case.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's not it's not the case at all. And and and and everything I've seen is to the contrary, in fact. It's yeah, uh, it's about I mean it will it, I think this industry will continue to grow until we have uh megawatt or perhaps you know, like multiple megawatt or even gigawatt scalable solutions that could be stood up quickly where the where where you can build fast enough to stay ahead, and that's when this that's when this probably levels out. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, I think that I think really what's required for that is for you know the the nuclear advancements we've been talking about, the micoreactors and the SMRs to really mainstream and really, you know, Bobby Gallagher touched on the plan with deployable energy, you know, when when we we pressed him on, you know, uh, okay, what is a what is a gigafactory that you're gonna stand up capable of? How much, how many megawatts, how many gigawatts can you produce manufacturing new generation assets, right? And he used the term, he he made the analogy of well, you know, uh we're we're aiming toward like the automotive industry, like that type of volume, that type of cookie-cutter systemization. And that's what you're talking about, Dave. You know, when you when you have big factories like that that are able to, with full licensing and support and and capitalization, are able to just start blowing out micro reactors in the thousands, like like a car factory, then then you have then all of a sudden you reach a capability within the nation where you're gonna be deploying all this at a rate that is unprecedented, and you can start to really level things out, but we're a ways away. That's that's a decade or more away, I think, in our minds.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it at least. I mean, and you know, one of the headlines I think this week, when you and I haven't mentioned it to you, or we haven't talked about it, was that you know, BP, you know, came out in one of their calls and they're predicting higher oil and gas demand, uh, suggesting world will not hit. Uh I mean, the big you know, the any of the targets it was trying to do in reducing that, meaning like that that that that industry uh is is seeing, you know, they they're having to revise and say, no, no, no, you know, we saw demand, we saw demand uh changing, but it's it's again it's it's going up. Um and they're seeing like eight, you know, five, eight, ten percent growth where they weren't necessarily predicting that before. And so it just shows the stress on the system to solve these energy issues. And so there you go. I mean, I think that underscores it. Yeah, awesome. Uh um the uh you know uh one of the interesting stories that I think I've been we've been following a little bit, and it kind of talks about the size and scale and these massive uh projects is uh Fermi. And yeah, you know, and I I'd like to bring up Fermi because Fermi is trying to do in Texas, I think, in a no small part what you know I think some other groups, ours included, sort of recognize needs to happen. Yeah. Um, and they're his so Rick Perry, so the Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, former uh secretary of energy, I believe. Secretary, yeah, secretary of energy. Uh his his Fermi, they just went public. So by the time this hits, it might have been it might be a week old or so by the time this episode hits. But it uh on initial coming to market, it raised 682 million in their IPO. In an IPO. In an IPO. And and and they're you know, they they've talked about also the AP 1000s and they want to build nuclear uh to the tune of three or four of the AP 1000s, in addition to other things and data centers and and and the whole, you know, they're calling you know the could be the largest data center kind of campus. They're they're thinking in terms of not a community so much as it is power and data centers. Uh, I don't even know if they they've addressed manufacturing necessarily, um, but they you know it's every it's everything else. So that hit the market. Um, and obviously, you know, raising 682 million in IPO is a pretty good indicator as to what we're talking about, where the market is and where the market's where the market thinking is thinking these projects are headed. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

So so there's that. We're in the right boat, folks.

SPEAKER_01:

We're in the right boat. Um this in a well, speaking of Texas, uh, and I, you know, this is something that has everything big in Texas. Everything's big in Texas, including this. Everything's big in Texas, uh, including this. Uh this has been rumored for a while, but we finally kind of know the who, the who's who, which was again, it was rumored. Uh OpenAI and Oracle are partnering to build the 165 billion dollar project. Um uh uh and uh near El Paso. Um and so that's that's just that's just huge. And I'm actually now I'm I might New Mexico, isn't it? Yeah, there's it wasn't El Paso, Texas. It's El Paso. So I apologize, not Texas, El Paso, New Mexico. Oh yeah, yeah, data center in uh Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near El Paso. Yeah. Um uh part of oh and this is part of OpenAI's massive Stargate project. So but we didn't know the kind of the who's who, and then it just came out it's it's open AI and Oracle, not surprising. Uh$165 billion data center campus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

This is this is really big news for New Mexico. I mean, we didn't this is like New Mexico's maiden voyage into the data center arena.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, in a big way. And it also involves a company that we're familiar with, and that's Borderplex, uh, digital assets out of Austin. Uh and it and uh so and then they're working with another company called Stack Infrastructure, which is based in Colorado. Um, so a big, big, big, big commitment into that area. I mean, just monstrous. And so the uh the uh the county board of commissioners approved an incentive uh deal for the project. Uh, and that was part of what kicked this off, a 401 vote last week. And that was the last hurdle before the project could proceed. So last hurdle is jumped. This is moving forward,$145 billion, I would imagine, or$165 billion plus data center campus coming.

SPEAKER_00:

Does it talk about compute capacity or megawatts consumption? It does.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, okay. No, no, no, it doesn't. Uh at least not in this article. Uh, so I'm sure that's out there somewhere. Um, I haven't uh I haven't seen it. So we'll have to maybe go look for that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, okay. Well, that's one to keep an eye on, New Mexico. Um Oracle, yep.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, and then and then speaking of OpenAI, they have also announced again this just like the last couple days, plan Stargate data center in South Korea along with Samsung Electronics and SKA Hynix to supply memory chips. So chipmakers, Stargate will ultimately require 900,000 DRAM chips a month. 900,000 chips a month. Yes. Wow. Um, and then this is on the heels of what OpenAI and it was in partnership with SoftBank and Oracle and Abu Dhabi's MGX. Oh, yeah. Um, uh would claim in total this would invest$500 billion in digital infrastructure over the next four years to service OpenAI's compute needs. Just staggering numbers. Staggering numbers. Um, it's almost hard, it's almost hard to get your head wrap your you know arms around how big these numbers are. Yeah. And again, I think this goes to what we talked about last year and some of our predictions about how fast we were seeing this end this this whole sector just explode. Oh, yeah. And when we were talking about, you know, the first billions and like joking that you know, we keep a tote board and we're gonna hit a trillion dollars. We are so over that right now, it's not oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So well, and like you say, I mean, when when you bring start bringing on some of the VRX and some of the other things you you mentioned, I mean, it just there are these multipliers coming. I don't think the markets are seeing that completely, but there's some sleepers that I think can 10x what's happening. You think AI right now and training these large language models are are are consumptive. Just wait. Just wait. Just wait.

SPEAKER_01:

And I mean, I think that's I think I mean they're already out there operating. We know that Meta has been obviously in that game where you know there's a lot of hardware being developed in this space, but the market has yet to take off because most of us can't really take advantage of it yet. Yeah, there is a there is a culture out there that has been you know living in VR or head, you know, the headsets for a while, and there are whole worlds out there, but the application or the the bridge between what we experience today and into that virtual world just still isn't there from a from a big market perspective. It's still first adopters. Um, certain industries have obviously adopted digital twinning, uh, training. So you know you've seen some medical industries go there for training doctors in a VR environment, or even like in you know, in in uh power power infrastructure where you have a digital twin of a of a design, so you can have you can train techs on the actual what it actually looks like. This has been something that's been explored the last decade, and it's been you know, it's it's uh it's well underway. But as far as like most of us using it in in daily life, not as much yet. We're seeing it, we're starting to see it, or we've seen it in the last few years on car uh heads-up displays, you know, when the driver's driving and you can at least see your my, you know, maybe how fast you're going and certain things, you know, eventually you're gonna have digital overlays in real time that'll probably notify you of you know accidents and real fun traffic data, all kinds of things like that. But we again we haven't seen it really take off. As soon as it does, that's compute that is gonna be pretty, I think, pretty intensive. Whether it's you know in a car, fine, but it's gonna be talking to a network that is feeding real-time data from somewhere, and all of that is gonna take more compute power. And so there's all this other stuff, it's just sitting there in the wings, I think, that it's it's gonna come in and further drive this full market forward. So absolutely, absolutely. Well, uh, and on and you know, and underscoring all of that always is this talk of nuclear, right? Yeah, and I think there's a lot of, and the reason I'm bringing that up is there's a lot, there are some other headlines we should probably talk about involving nuclear and where everything is, because like everything else, it seems to be changing from week to week, or there's more news every week that we want to bring to you and say, hey, by the way, this this is happening this week, and this is happening this week. Um, just to keep you apprised of this. And and so um one of the interesting things, I think an interesting move made by Canada, and this just is gonna show you where they think things are going. Uh, they extended uh the operation for Darlington, their one of their nuclear plants, which is a uh um, I think it's a three and a half gigawatt plant um by 20 years, which is unheard of. Wow. Uh so they renewed the the license ontario Ontario Power Generations OPG's license for Darlington by 20 years. So that was uh that was considered like you know, usually it was a lot shorter than that, uh, especially given where it is in its life cycle. And so it's you know, it is uh they're obviously doubling down. They see the need, they're there, it's not diminishing at all. So I think that kind of underscores what we're seeing everywhere else. Um you know, and then there was a you know, I wanted to really get into if it's okay, Wayne. Like, and it was an opinion piece uh uh on a on a thing that we both follow, utility dive. Um uh, you know, it's an online source and they they do a great job kind of curating all of the kind of the the points. They had a whole story on the DOE's reactor pilot, and and the the the the headline was a turning point for U.S. nuclear energy question mark. Yeah. And you know, we talked about it.

SPEAKER_00:

And is that specifically referring to the DARPA?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Okay, yeah. And it basically, okay, we've had a few weeks to kind of let this sink in. This is you know, it was announced maybe it was like three or maybe a month ago now, where the Trump administration recognized 10 pilots, right? And and so now everyone's been able to sit with this and okay, and then kind of see what this really is going to mean. And so this this this opinion piece is like, okay, is this the point at which the US puts a stake back in the ground and says, okay, we're we're coming, we're coming, and we're and we're here to compete, and we're you know, we're not gonna let, you know, we know, we know, and there's a there's a whole article talking about China and India and kind of where they are in in the SMR game, but it this is this is sort of asking that. So um so I'll I'll I'll read a little bit of it because it's written by Jocelyn Lavallo. Uh it was a good article. Uh the Department of Energy's nuclear program could be transformational for the energy sector if even one reactor demonstrates commercial operations safely, uh, writes uh Jocelyn Lavallo. Uh the Department of Energy's new reactor pilot program is not just another research initiative, it represents a bold experiment to see if advanced nuclear can move from concepts to real projects and do so rapidly. If successful, this program could redefine how the United States develops nuclear energy. If it fails, it may reinforce lingering doubts about the ability of the U.S. to build next-gen nuclear projects at scale. Established under one of the four executive orders signed May 23rd, 2025. This the uh the program directs D, but we've we've just heard some of the the the award just come out, you know, to set some context. Awards just kind of came out in the last month. So this is as a result of that. The uh directs the DOE to authorize advanced nuclear demonstration projects outside of national labs and is aimed at achieving criticality for at least three test reactors by July 4th, 2026. Yeah. So coming very quickly, under a year now.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Request for applications was issued June 18th, which we knew. Uh, and selections followed on August 12th. Uh, and so crucially, these reactors will be authorized. Uh, so the program could succeed. So, this is kind of talking about the program could succeed multiple ways from fast track from lab to launch. By setting a clear deadline of the three reactors nearing criticality in just over a year, DOE is stepping up to bridge the gap between design and operation. This is a departure from nuclear's usual timeline of many years, even a decade from licensing through construction. Yeah. What unlocking private capital, investor interest in nuclear energy has grown, but regulatory costs and construction schedule uncertainty has so far slowed turning the interest into project finance for advanced nuclear. That clarity reduces uh perceived risk and could catalyze private equity infrastructure funds and utility investment, which we definitely see. And then the U.S. And then the idea being the US reclaiming a strategic leadership. China, Russia operating advanced reactors in countries like Canada, UK, and France are pursuing SMRs aggressively. A rapid US demonstration fleet signals that America intends to compete both economically and geopolitically in nuclear energy. Why this could be a game changer? If even one of these pilot reactors goes critical and demonstrates commercial operations safely, the impact could be transformational. It would prove that modular reactor designs can work at scale, supply investors with real-world reference projects, and shift broader planning from concept to commission. In energy policy terms, it could start a nuclear renaissance, firming up the electrification and clean power goals of the 2030s and beyond. It could also help solve critical data center power needs as those needs expand beyond our current ability to power them. Um so then it goes on to talk about the risk because we still have NRC oversight and we can be pass bypassing it. What are the pros and cons? It goes into that. But given our recent interview with Bobby Gallagher, I thought it was important to think about because you know we see that as one an additional project that could show huge success and solve what needs to be solved in this space. And and and so, you know, as we've said many times, you know, in the last, I don't know, six months, we have positioned ourselves as Invectus and then the Valley Forge project as you know, hopefully being a home and hosting uh some of these upcoming projects because we not only do we see the need to do this, but we see you know our our uh our project being a really good perfect location to test these things. Obviously, there are other locations in the US that are already up and running, like IDL uh up in Idaho, uh, but you know, it it can't we also need we see the need for more. And so it's it's just what I loved about it is it really underscored, like we are at an inflection point. And so as we see national conversations going on about nuclear, as we see um, you know, states like the state of Utah, like Governor Cox and his administration, you know, on a campaign to educate people about the realities of modern day nuclear versus old school and why this is a good thing. Yeah, we see that you know in various places around the country happening. There's a reason for that. They're wanting to get people to understand what's actually occurring uh and what has been occurring in the last few years. Why? Because they've been briefed, they have all the experts who have spent their lives in this in this sector laying out for them the reality of this, and so they are up to speed on what needs to be done, what they should be doing, what they think needs to be strategized to accomplish. And so they're now saying, okay, well, now I've got now we've got to go to the people because most people aren't paying attention to this, and that's okay. We have our busy lives, we're not paying, you know, again, most power knowledge comes from. Well, I turned on my lights today, I'm good. I charge my phone, I'm good. Not fully understanding where the power is coming from, how it's being built, the problems of the future. You know, obviously, you know, we we we have this going on to hopefully help that conversation. Maybe a few listeners are saying, Hey, I didn't know that, and I should be aware of this because it's going to affect my life, my family's life, and everybody's lives. And we need to understand this. So now we see this broader, this broader conversation starting to take root on nuclear. I'm really um, I'm really um pleased to see this happening finally. Um, and more at scale. I have been in converse more conversations than I can imagine in the last four or five months, partially because of this, but because of our podcast, Wayne. But people asking me, what do you think? You know, family, friends, what do you think about nuclear? And and and actually showing some interest finally saying, Oh, I I I think I need to learn more about this and know about this. And there, in my opinion, is a lot of misinformation out there. Oh, there's a lot of old world fears, yeah, reasonable fears, by the way. I mean, you know, when you watch an when you watch an island, you know, when you watch Fukushima happen, you want this is this is big stuff, and it's hard, and you know, when when nuclear in the past went bad, it went really bad and it went bad at scale. You know, this is 40 and 50 years of advanced technology and ideas about how to do this. And so even the like the AP 1000, it it's not your it's not your grandfather's reactor. Yeah, you know, this is a whole new reactor, whole new safety protocols, but all the stuff coming after that right now being built, these are things that are just they you know, they've they've had the benefit of decades and decades of research, and we just know how to do things better. And so that anyway, so that's why I bring this up. I think it's just important to keep that conversation going. And it's good to see that that there are there are you know, people still is talking about it, talking about the the positive effects of some of this recent, you know, the the carrying on of this legislation just to see nuclear advance in the US.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think Bobby Gallagher made a really great analogy when we interviewed him. He's like, you know, the the reactors of the old world, I mean, these guys were designing this stuff with slide rulers. Yeah, like before calculators, like like imagine this, like like likeness of the car industry. This is like talking about Ford Model T's and and today's you know, most advanced vehicles. Like that that is the contrast. This is 50 years of advancement in nuclear energy, is a dramatic, dramatic advancement. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and and you know, I don't think we're sharing state secrets at all uh by saying, I mean, you know, uh the the reactor at the University of Utah that we had the good fortune of being able to tour, I mean, until recently was operate, it was an analog operating system. Yeah, right. I mean, they were they were excited to get a digital heads-up display board, yeah, right to be able to control things, showing, I mean, and it's a reactor that's been online for a while, but that I mean, it's you know, for what it does up there for training purposes, it was it's great and it's fine, yeah. But but they have to they they they're run under you know NRC rules, and so you know, just showing you how like old technology was kind of lagging behind and hasn't been updated, and again, they were just happy to have a digital display. Um, you know, and they had to go through all kinds of testing and rules because you know, a digital display. Anyway, there's there's all the reasons why that for that, why analog could have been better for security reasons. However, uh just shows you how far things have come and advanced and how much we need to kind of catch up with the times. And Bobby was right. I mean, I I think I remember reading or seeing somebody say, like, you know, I had more compute power, and this is years ago. There's more compute power in that phone right there in your hand, yeah, and there than there was in all of NASA's headquarters to put put put us on the moon. Yeah. That's right. That's absolutely right. So, you know, yeah. And and as he said, you know, slide rules and that. And so there were, there were, they did the best they could, and they did really well way back when. Yeah, but uh we're so far past that now, we're so far advanced. That's why that's why you see generation on probably our you know, on our navy, you don't hear it ever talked about. And our you know, we have we have we have nuclear propulsion on submarines and other things, and you know, it's in fact, actually, a lot of people who are out in the private sector now have had experience on those. That's where they got their experience. Yeah. Um, and everything's been operating just fine.

SPEAKER_00:

So well, you know, on the nuclear side of this, it's exciting. I I'm just feeling like bringing up 47G for a second because we did a spotlight with 47G recently, and we've really started to integrate with them. You know, we're gearing up for the Zero Gravity Summit uh here in Salt Lake City, November 3rd, 4th, 5th. If you don't have tickets, guys, go and get them. You can go to Zerogravity Summit.com and find those tickets, but just go look at the lineup and look at the four key categories of what that whole summit is is uh designed to really illustrate. Nuclear energy is a big one, right? And that's where we're gonna get up, get to be able to get up there and talk about some of these advancements and what Valley Forge is doing in the nuclear space, but also aerospace and defense. We've got some very interesting guys coming to the table here. We just added Rick Sanford to our board of advisors for Invictus Sovereign, representing us in the aerospace and defense technology sector. And some of these conversations are mind-blowing, like recognizing the place for nuclear technologies in space application, and the likes of General Steve Quast, you know, collaborating with us. And we we talked about his interview on the Sean Ryan show months back. But talk about, you know, thinking for the future. Like these guys are really bringing, you know, merging the two the two conversations, the the the space economy and the nuclear economy. And that's a super exciting and and it seems like an axiomatic uh synergy between the two. So it's fun to be uh dealing in both sectors. Absolutely. I'm glad you brought it up.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, and we're we're really excited to be uh a part of that, and it's gonna be what we think is an exciting conversation and there are and and to talk about this the breadth that is here, and you you he hit on it. We've to we talked to Bobby about it, we've talked to people online, offline about this. You know, uh the you know, the next next forefront of defense, and it's it's already, I'm sure, going on, and we we know it's already going on is space. Um, it doesn't get talked about a lot, uh, probably as much as other things do, but it is it is definitely one of the fronts of defense, um and one of those sectors that everybody's paying attention to, from nuclear propulsion in space uh to every and and and everything beyond that, you know, whether it's you know eventually putting uh nuclear power, if it hasn't already been done, on the moon, um and and and you know, getting things stood up on the moon as a as a possible base. I mean, these are these are things you know, you you hear you hear it headlines and you kind of see it, and sometimes Elon's talking about it, but this is a there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes in this sector. And nuclear is nuclear is part of that conversation almost every time. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's and not just in the bombing part of it, not just in the missile part of it, but the powering, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

The powering of this stuff. I mean, this is a much better solution as we can you know find commercialization equilibrium, much better solution for the longevity of the space programming than trying to use solar panels in space and and all of the the weaknesses and and challenges around that. So well, guys, listen, that's the top of the hour. Let's wrap it up, Dave. This was another phenomenal episode, and uh we hope you'll join us on the next one. Until next time on the frontier line.

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David P. Murray

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Wayne M. Aston

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