She just thought we were Ali was talking
about from the M&A perspective. I have had sort of thematically
specialized pieces come on the show in recent weeks and months and say pretty
good outlet for us, because they either provide a very clear technology platform
to a bigger base in the energy field, for example.
What did you make of her comments? I sort of agree.
So I actually think that we're seeing a lot of growing interest from traditional
industrial companies that are looking for digital technologies and pockets of
growth. And frankly, in our space, the software
meets climate intersection brings both. It brings digital technologies and it
brings the growth pockets that a lot of these traditional buyers are bringing.
I think this interest isn't exclusive to A.I.
companies or maybe even catalyzed, because I do agree that a lot of the AI
specific companies are still early in their journey.
But there's no doubt tech driven growth that is attractive.
And I think the companies are looking

for products that they can build on to
their platforms and talent next generation that's going to help them
pull forward to where the transition is actually going.
I don't think it's a surprise to audience that we have at events capacity
specializing in energy or climate tech, talking about AI, but we need to
understand how much of it is hype and how much is it sort of having an actual
impact. Right.
I was a battery and EV reporter for a really long time.
Loads of examples where software makes a really fundamental difference.
So to take that and give me case studies of where you're seeing AI impact your
portfolio companies or the industry at large.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I actually think that AI is already
having a big impact in our space in two primary ways.
On the one hand, it's actually very computationally intensive and it demands
huge amounts of power, just electricity to actually give rise to that compute.
And this is a huge surge in the power

load in our world and it's pointing to
stress in our grit. So energy consumption is expected to
grow 7 to 10% year on year compared to usually 2 to 3% year on year over the
next several years. So that's a huge draw for power, and it's
a huge draw for potential applications. The second is that AI is actually
enabling a wide set of opportunities to accelerate the energy transition.
Like you were talking about workflow automation that can help reduce soft
costs or generate tools that can help improve the development or the
deployment of renewable projects. So, for example, batteries, you
mentioned we have a company in our portfolio called Twice that can actually
use AI engines to calibrate how batteries will age and degrade over time,
so we can better predict battery behavior, better predict performance,
better predict detailed insights into the state of charge and capacity.
So, to make sure that we can actually use those resources more effectively and
more appropriately at scale.

Juan, I'm sure you will have watched the
presidential debate last night. Infrastructure has been at the heart of
President Biden's policy platform for the last three and
half years. How has that manifested in the real
world for you, in the areas that you invest in?
The infrastructure, The Inflation Reduction Act, which is really an
infrastructure bill, has pulled the future forward in a lot of different
ways. But at energies, we don't really see a
shift in political power is a particular threat to the energy transition.
We see that that train is underway and the companies that we're investing are
accelerating that. So it might change a little bit, the
pace, but the direction is not, it's not really changing for me.
I think it comes down to economics. The renewable tech transition technology
that is viable today. Wind, solar, and batteries, they've come
down in cost dramatically over the last ten or 15 years, and that's going to
continue.

We've invested under Republican
presidents and under Democratic presidents.
And either way, that train has really left the station.
And we actually think that the directional arrow of progress is going
to continue to follow better products and better economics, and really better
social outcomes around the world. You join us from Chicago, Illinois.
I still think of the Bay Area and Silicon Valley as the hotbed of
energy or climate-related tech. Is that the case?
There's a lot of innovation outside of Silicon Valley for climate.
Climate is a global opportunity. The talent that is tackling the climate
challenge is also global. We see a lot of innovation in Europe,
specifically where those power dynamics and that energy infrastructure
is very, very different. So actually we see a lot of opportunity
to invest outside of Silicon Valley, and we actually really like to be close to
customers. And so being in that Midwest, the heart
of industry is important to us.

AI's Role in Climate Tech

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