In a CS 153 Frontier Systems lecture, the class zooms out from AI model labs to examine energy and electricity as upstream bottlenecks to compute and data center growth, intensified since ChatGPT’s 2022 breakout and renewed enterprise demand after Claude 4.6. Guest Scott Nolan, CEO of General Matter, argues that uptime requirements and turbine shortages make baseload power crucial, pushing hyperscalers toward nuclear for its low carbon emissions and safety record. He explains nuclear’s fuel supply chain and identifies uranium enrichment as the key missing U.S. capability, with the U.S. holding under 0.1% enrichment market share and relying on Europe and Russia. Nolan describes founding General Matter in 2024, winning a $900M DOE contract, building a Kentucky facility, and hiring toward hundreds to thousands of roles.