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AI's Infrastructure Emergency: Will Nuclear Power and Liquid Cooling be Enough?
AI ambition is colliding with physical reality.
As data centers push from 20-kilowatt racks to 120-kilowatt systems—with megawatt-per-rack infrastructure on the horizon—the limits of power and cooling have become impossible to ignore.
In this episode of Innovation Heroes, Ed McNamara explores the collision between AI ambition and energy reality with two guides who see the problem from opposite ends of the timeline.
Brian Smith of Idaho National Laboratory takes us inside the nuclear renaissance, where small modular reactors are being designed to deliver massive, carbon-free power on dramatically shorter timelines—"like building airplanes, not airports."
Meanwhile, Ryan Hotchkin of SHI International brings the conversation back to today's constraints: liquid cooling becoming mandatory, power capacity maxed out, and cloud costs rising for everyone.
Together, they map what IT leaders need to understand now—and what's coming next—if AI initiatives are going to scale instead of stall.
Key Takeaways:
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch on YouTube shi.com/heroes
#AI #DataCenter #NuclearEnergy #ITInfrastructure #Innovation
Guests:
Related Resources:
View all episodes
By SHI
4.9
2929 ratings
AI ambition is colliding with physical reality.
As data centers push from 20-kilowatt racks to 120-kilowatt systems—with megawatt-per-rack infrastructure on the horizon—the limits of power and cooling have become impossible to ignore.
In this episode of Innovation Heroes, Ed McNamara explores the collision between AI ambition and energy reality with two guides who see the problem from opposite ends of the timeline.
Brian Smith of Idaho National Laboratory takes us inside the nuclear renaissance, where small modular reactors are being designed to deliver massive, carbon-free power on dramatically shorter timelines—"like building airplanes, not airports."
Meanwhile, Ryan Hotchkin of SHI International brings the conversation back to today's constraints: liquid cooling becoming mandatory, power capacity maxed out, and cloud costs rising for everyone.
Together, they map what IT leaders need to understand now—and what's coming next—if AI initiatives are going to scale instead of stall.
Key Takeaways:
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch on YouTube shi.com/heroes
#AI #DataCenter #NuclearEnergy #ITInfrastructure #Innovation
Guests:
Related Resources:
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