Training vs. inference and long runway

Powering AI is no longer just a technology story — it’s an energy and infrastructure story reshaping capital markets and the global economy. As artificial intelligence scales from training to real-world inference, electricity demand is accelerating at a pace few anticipated.

In this episode of The Bid, host Oscar Pulido is joined by Will Su from BlackRock’s Fundamental Equities Group to examine how powering AI is transforming utilities, natural gas markets, renewables, and nuclear power. With data centers expanding rapidly and gigawatt-scale facilities coming online, the AI build-out is driving a structural shift in U.S. electricity demand after more than a decade of stagnation.

Will explains why the energy sector sits at the center of AI investing. From the rise of “bring your own power” models to the growing role of natural gas as a dispatchable, scalable fuel source, the infrastructure required to support AI represents one of the largest capital investment cycles in modern history. The conversation also explores renewables, battery storage, and nuclear power — including the limits of restarts and the long timeline for new reactor construction.

Key moments:

00:00 Introduction Power Is Knowledge: AI’s Exponential Energy Appetite

02:31 From Tokens to ‘Yottaflops’: Why Smarter Models Need More Electricity

05:04 Training LLMs vs. Inference: The Next Wave of AI Power Demand

06:45 Data Centers at City Scale: How Big Is the Load?

11:15 Bring Your Own Power (BYOP): Why Natural Gas Is Back in Focus

16:04 Renewables Reality Check: Solar Momentum, Wind Headwinds, and Batteries

19:14 Nuclear’s Comeback - Restarts Now, New Builds Later

21:26 Can AI Beat Humans at Investing? Man + Machine as the Edge

23:33 Wrap-Up, What’s Next

Check out Will's first episode on AI and energy on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6wgKwkSLqmXFdG0qvW6Kov?si=I0R6YfbcSASC2BvcnhUBTw

Or watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_AOkSc7usYQ

Powering AI 2.0, AI investing, infrastructure, capital markets, energy transition, utilities, stock market trends, megaforces

Sources: “From CES 2026 to Yottaflops: Why the AMD Keynote Highlights a Turning Point for AI Compute”, AMD 2026; “The Industrial Revolution, coal mining, and the Felling Colliery Disaster”, Lancaster University, 2026; Bureau of Economic Analysis data 2026; “Stargate's First Data Center Site is Size of Central Park, With At Least 57 Jobs”, Bloomberg 2026; “Energy Demand from AI”, IEA 2026; “Scaling bigger, faster, cheaper data centers with smarter designs”, McKinsey 2025; EEI 2024 Review; “Data Centers Ditching the Power Grid, Mark Carney's Viral Speech, and Some Joy”, Clearview Energy; “2024 North American Energy Inventory”, IER;

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