C3.ai, Bloom Energy CEOs talk optimizing the grid through AI

As massive investments are made into AI and its infrastructure, the need for energy and proper distribution will be great to power these systems. C3.ai Inc (AI) and Bloom Energy (BE) have teamed up to solve this problem and supposedly revolutionize the way electricity is allocated across power grids.

C3.ai Chairman and CEO Tom Siebel and Bloom Energy Founder, Chairman, and CEO KR Sridhar — who is also a member of C3.ai's board of directors — join Catalysts to discuss the partnership between these two companies and what it can do for consumers.

Sridhar elaborates on how the companies will work together, using data to make better decisions on where to distribute energy: "Finally, the time has come when we can take those billion data points from all the digital trends of things coming out of our power plants and optimize it better. That's what we're working on, and it is super important, not just for us. Once we prove this out, the future of electricity is going to be a lot of distributed generation, unlike one centralized power plant. This can be a model that everybody else can use. "

Siebel follows that up with: "One of the largest applications of AI is to optimize the global grid infrastructure and the grid would be the largest, most complex machine ever built. And so we could use AI to deliver cleaner, more reliable, safer energy into the hands of more satisfied customers at lower environmental impact."

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video transcript

Well, C three A I is announcing a new partnership with Bloom Energy using C three A is reliability suite to help broaden the scope and precision of Bloom's product monitoring technology.

For more on this new collaboration we wanna bring in Tom Siebel.

He's CC three A is CEO and chairman, as well as Kr Sri.

He is Bloom Energy's founder, chairman and CEO.

Great to see both of you also have um Madison Mills joining the conversation as well.

Kr Let me start with you just in terms of we, we've been talking more and more where there has been more of a focus on Bloom Energy recently when we talk about this energy transition, what ultimately is needed uh as we talk about the rapid adoption of A I.

So why does this partnership make sense?

And ultimately what does it do for your business?

So three things out here, right?

The first is as our economy is growing, as we are digitizing everything as transportation like in your previous segment is getting electrified as A I and data center growth goes up.

The grid is not able to keep up with the demand that there is and one of the ways to solve that problem on a quick time to power is using distributed systems like ours to bring clean, reliable electricity right where the customer needs it.

That's what bloom does.

Now, if you think about our deployed uh fleet, think about it as almost 20,000 small independent power plants operating in over 200 sites and producing enough power for a million homes.

And imagine from each of these million homes, 1000 data points coming in all that you know, every single day.

So a billion point, you know, data points are coming in with which we can make sense and try to optimize better and make the products more efficient uh last longer for the customer and uh provide a better benefit.

Now with the A I platform, Tom and I have been talking about this for a very long time.

Finally, the time has come when we can take those billion data points from all the digital trends of things coming out of our power plants and optimize it better.

That's what we're working on and it is super important, not just for us.

Once we prove this out, the future of electricity is going to be a lot of distributor generation, unlike one centralized power plant, this can be a model that everybody else can use.

Well, Tom, I want you to come in here because as Kr was just mentioning, the C three can really help its customers aggregate a lot of data.

But the A I hype cycle is kind of quickly moved on from traditional use cases like aggregation of data into a desire for new products that can come from generative A I.

So I'm curious from your perspective, what is the path for C three A A I to become a generative A I play?

And how long do you anticipate that taking?

Uh Well, I think we're well beyond the hype cycle.

And now we're in the A I implementations like massive scale.

And one of the largest applications of A I is to optimize the global grid infrastructure.

And the grid would be the largest most complex machine ever built.

And so we could use A I to deliver a cleaner, more reliable, safer energy into the hands of more satisfied customers at lower in, in environmental impact.

That being said, kind of globally the people who operate the grid are kind of failing due to policy decisions and the availability of power is becoming critical in Europe and in, in, in North America.

So where we have, you know, the kind of work that Kr is doing with these fuel cells.

Now we have, you know, tens of thousands of fuel cells are part of this great infrastructure and optimize that infrastructure.

We need to apply A I now generative A I.

How big is that?

It's huge.

I mean, the, the, the the, you know the market for uh you know, enterprise A I, applications in power and utilities in oil and gas.

Defense intelligence, manufacturing, that is probably, you know, order, you know, going to order of a trillion dollar industry, generative A I is another trillion dollar industry on top of that.

And we're applying JA I to generative A I today in defense and intelligence in power in power distribution utilities like uh Con Edison, New York Power Authority.

What we do is working with generative A I with Kr at Bloom Energy and so generative A I changes everything and I, but I do think we're well beyond the hive cycle in, in, in A I and now we're in the large scale commercial and industrial implementation cycle really quickly.

Tom I know you've got a lot of revenue coming in from defense like you mentioned, where are you seeing more demand from commercial or from government sectors?

Commercial is by far our, our largest, some commercial is uh you know, energy, oil and gas, consumer, packaged goods, travel, transportation.

Um you know, that would be a government services that's 80% of our business state and local.

But uh I would say defense and intel might be 15 to 20% of our business.

That being said it is rapidly growing.

I believe we announced last quarter that year, over year growth was order of 100%.

So it's one of the, you know, as we are gonna re invent, OK.

The, the, the military complex uh in space.

Subsurface, Cyber.

Ok.

Uh Contested logistics.

What have you?

Uh A I is very much at the center of that and we're very active in participating with the Pentagon and helping them get these services where they want them to be.

Well, given that in our final minute, Tom, I'm curious, I know you've talked about how we're essentially at war with China here.

One minute left.

Talk to me about how worried you are about that headwind, moving forward, be afraid, uh be, be afraid.

These people are competent, they're well financed, they're well trained and they're focused and uh and they are, you know, this idea, pure evil exists.

Ok?

It does exist.

Ok?

And, and these people, they plan on dominating us in, you know, in A I in chips in cyber, in space in subsurface.

And uh and A I is very much the part of this plan.

And so we are in an open uh A I warfare with, with China today and, you know, different companies are, are, are partnering with different players.

We are partnering with the United States Department of Defense and their allies and we're proud to do it and uh and hope that we win, but I would, you know, be afraid and this is, this is, this is a very, very important, indeed, an existential issue.

All right, Tom Sel we wish we had more time.

Thanks so much for joining us and of course, our thanks, take care, sweetheart as well.

We look forward to hopefully having you back on Yahoo finance in the f in the future.

Appreciate your time.