China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer

中国在能源领域超越美国。这难道意味着他们将在通用人工智能领域夺冠?——凯西·汉德默

Dwarkesh Podcast

2025-08-15

1 小时 8 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

How will we feed the 100s of GWs of extra energy demand that AI will create over the coming decade? On this episode, Casey Handmer (Caltech PhD, former NASA JPL, founder & CEO of Terraform Industries) walks me through how we can pull it off, and why he thinks a major part of this energy singularity will be powered by solar. His views are contrarian, but he came armed to defend them. Watch on YouTube; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. SPONSORS - Lighthouse helps frontier technology companies like Cursor and Physical Intelligence navigate the U.S. immigration system and hire top talent from around the world. Lighthouse handles everything for you, maximizing the probability of visa approval while minimizing the work you have to do. Learn more at lighthousehq.com/employers - To sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkesh.com/advertise. TIMESTAMPS (00:00:00) – Why doesn’t China win by default? (00:08:28) – Why hyperscalers choose natural gas over solar (00:18:01) – Solar's astonishing learning rates (00:27:02) – How to build 50,000 acre solar-powered data centers (00:40:24) – Environmental regulations blocking clean energy (00:44:04) – Batteries replacing the grid (00:49:14) – GDP is broken, AGI's true value must be measured in total energy use (00:58:45) – Silicon wafers in space with one mind each Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • Today I'm interviewing Casey Hanmer.

  • Casey has worked on a bunch of cool things.

  • Caltech PhD on some gravitational wave black hole gimmick stuff, then Hyperloop,

  • then the Jet Proposal Laboratory at NASA, and now he's founder and CEO of Terraform Industries.

  • Casey, welcome.

  • Thank you.

  • It's great to be here finally.

  • Big picture question I'm interested in.

  • To the extent that AI just ends up being this big industrial race,

  • who can build the most solar panels,

  • who can build the most batteries,

  • who can build the most GPUs and transmission lines and transformers and et cetera, et cetera.

  • This is not what the US is known for, at least in recent decades.

  • This is exactly what China is known for, right?

  • Where they have like 20x the amount of yearly solar manufacturing the US has.

  • Obviously, we have extra controls right now, but over time,

  • SMIC will catch up to TSMC's leading edge.

  • So what is a story exactly of how the United States wins this?

  • Like why does China just not win by default?

  • Do you think that China is better at capital allocation in the United States?