The race for AI supremacy is dramatically increasing electricity consumption, as hyperscalers, such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon, invest heavily in expanding data center capacity—straining an already outdated U.S. energy grid. In this episode, recorded live at our NOW conference in Austin, Brown Advisory's Katherine Kroll sat down with three experts—Dr. Brian Spears, Dr. Michael Webber and Alex Hernandez—to explore critical questions, including: Is the data center expansion exaggerated? How will it impact the energy transition? What role will nuclear energy play? What are the national security implications?

 

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Guests

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Alex Hernandez

Founder and CEO, Cumulus Data; Former CEO, Talen Energy

Alex Hernandez was Founder and CEO of Cumulus Data, the first hyperscale data center platform directly connected to carbon- free nuclear power without utility intermediation. Cumulus Data was sold to AWS in March 2024 for $650 million, generating an investment return of 5.0x MOIC since the Company’s founding in 2020. Mr. Hernandez has 20 years of experience in business formation, operations, executive leadership, and strategic advisory roles. Concurrent with founding Cumulus Data, Mr. Hernandez served as CEO of Talen Energy Corp, one of the largest competitive power companies in North America with 15 GW of power generation assets. From 2016 to 2023, Mr. Hernandez led the business through a take-private transaction, successful operating turnaround, transformation, restructuring and sale. Talen was recognized by Forbes to the list of America’s best employers for three consecutive years during his tenure as President and CEO. Prior to joining Talen, Mr. Hernandez served as CFO of TerraForm Power, Inc. (NASDAQ: TERP) a public renewable power (wind and solar) infrastructure growth company. He led TerraForm through the Company’s formation, IPO, growth and sale to Brookfield (NYSE: BEP) for $6.9 billion, generating a 340% percent return from inception to sale. Before creating TerraForm, Mr. Hernandez was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, where he provided strategic, M&A, and capital markets advice to management teams and Boards, with a focus on the power, utilities, renewables, nuclear, midstream energy and industrial sectors. Mr. Hernandez has acted as a Senior Advisor to Blackstone and Digital Bridge, focusing on the convergence of energy and digital infrastructure globally. Mr. Hernandez currently serves on the Board of Target Hospitality (NASDAQ: TH), a provider of modular housing to infrastructure markets. He also served on the Board and Executive Committee of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). Mr. Hernandez received a B.A. in Economics from Rice University (cum laude) and the London School of Economics, and an MBA from Columbia University. 

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Brian Spears, Ph.D.

Director, AI Innovation Incubator, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Brian Spears is the director of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institutional Initiative and a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He is responsible for setting vision for development and deployment of AI methods for national security missions at the Laboratory while driving LLNL excellence in AI for science. He is a principal architect of Cognitive Simulation – artificial intelligence (AI) methods that combine high-performance simulation and precision experiments to improve scientific prediction. He is also the Director of the LLNL AI Innovation Incubator, AI3, which develops strong public-private partnerships on collaborative research projects to advance scientific AI in the national interest. Brian served as the Deputy for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) Modeling where he guided the scientific simulation half of the ICF program at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) through its historic achievement of nuclear fusion ignition. In his personal research, he applies cognitive simulation techniques to stockpile stewardship missions with emphasis on quantifying uncertainty in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments and developing a new generation of self-driving laboratory systems. He designed ICF experiments for almost two decades, including the very first cryogenic layered experiments at the National Ignition Facility. He developed new ICF ignition metrics using the first large-scale ensembles of high-fidelity ICF simulations on the world’s largest supercomputers. He also pioneered data science and AI methods in ICF leading to the successful prediction of the world’s first fusion ignition event. He received the LLNL Mid-Career Recognition for career achievements in research. He is the recipient of two Secretary of Energy Achievement Awards, multiple National Nuclear Security Administration Defense Programs Awards of Excellence, the Hyperion HPC Innovation Award, and the HPC Wire Editors’ Choice Award for Best Use of High-Performance Computing in Energy. Brian completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley where he was a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow and studied topological methods for high-dimensional dynamical systems. He also holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering and a B.A. in liberal arts from the University of Texas at Austin. When not doing science, he can be found racing his bike or chauffeuring his two children to swim practice.

robin niblett

Michael E. Webber, Ph.D.

Sid Richardson Chair in Public Affairs, John J. McKetta Centennial Energy Chair in Engineering, University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Michael E. Webber is the Sid Richardson Chair in the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the John J. McKetta Centennial Energy Chair in the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to his role as a faculty member, from August 2021 to September 2024, Webber served as CTO of Energy Impact Partners, a $5 billion cleantech venture fund focused on investments in cleantech and climate tech startups with the potential for deep decarbonization at speed and scale. Furthermore, from September 2018 to August 2021, Webber was based in Paris, France where he served as the Chief Science and Technology Officer at ENGIE, one of the world’s largest energy companies. Webber’s works spans research and education at the convergence of engineering, policy, and commercialization on topics related to innovation, energy, and the environment. His research tackles complex energy systems analysis with a deep record of expertise on the following: 1) grid reliability in the face of electrification and the rise of variable sources in a warming world, 2) the hydrogen sector and how it couples to other sectors such as the grid, transportation, industry, and the built environment and 3) the food-energy-water-waste nexus. Webber has authored or co-authored more than 600 publications, including five full-length general interest books, and holds 6 patents. His book Power Trip: the Story of Energy was published in 2019 by Basic Books with an award-winning 12-part companion series spread out over two seasons that aired on PBS, Amazon Prime, AppleTV, and in-flight entertainment on American Airlines. The series had more than 10,000 broadcasts in the United States and has been distributed in dozens of countries, ultimately reaching millions of viewers. Seasons 1 and 2 of Power Trip along with his documentary Thirst for Power and television special Energy at the Movies have been recognized with six Telly Awards (one gold, four silver, and one bronze) for excellence in television. He serves on the board of GTI Energy (an industry consortium formerly known as the Gas Technology Institute) and the Scientific Advisory Council for ENGIE. He was selected in 2014 as a Fellow of ASME (the American Society of Mechanical Engineers), in 2018 as a member of the 4th class of the Presidential Leadership Scholars, which is a leadership training program organized by Presidents George W. Bush and William J. Clinton, and in 2022 for the Rockefeller Foundation’s prestigious writer’s residency in Bellagio, Italy. Webber holds a B.S. and B.A. from UT Austin, and M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He was honored as an American Fellow of the German Marshall Fund and on four separate occasions by the University of Texas for exceptional teaching.

 

Moderator

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Katherine Kroll

Director of Equity Research, Sustainable Investing, Brown Advisory

Katherine is a partner, a member of the Executive Team, and serves as head of institutional sustainable investing. She is responsible for managing the integration of sustainable investment considerations into our equity research process—including the risks and opportunities that arise from the effects of natural resources, climate, human capital and governance—to drive performance for our clients. As part of her role, Katherine leads the equity research team’s engagement strategy and supports the expansion of sustainable investment solutions at Brown Advisory. Previously, Katherine was an investment specialist for Brown Advisory’s Large-Cap Sustainable Growth strategy and a senior institutional sustainable investing specialist. She was recognized as one of SRI’s “30 Under 30” sustainable investing professionals in 2019 and was a leader of Women Investing for a Sustainable Economy (WISE). Prior to joining Brown Advisory, Katherine led the shareholder advocacy efforts for Green Century Capital Management.

 

 

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