Azeem Azhar

There were also things that I think on reflection I didn't talk about that I could have done.

I think the biggest one, which is implicit in the first two predictions, was just how the capex

boom for AI data centers, AI chips, and the electricity that powers them was going to really, really dominate the headlines.

We talked about this quite a lot last year, but I didn't put it in one of my predictions.

So that was an oversight and I apologize about that.

But, you know, it's so remarkable what we have, what we have seen in the change in the discussion about what AI is.

Back in December, I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times saying the U.S.,

has all this amazing AI research, but it's going to need power.

And its inability to deliver lots of power to data centers is going to leave it with some tough choices, might even

cause it to fall behind deployment of this technology relative to China.

And I think that's been a really important part of the narrative.

I think one of the things that has really surprised me, although it makes sense in hindsight, was the deal that was done in the Gulf, both with the UAE and Saudi, by American firms to build data centers and to build AI capability out there.

You know, from the perspective of the UAE, what I think of that as is a way of creating a third pole.

China, the US, who's number three?

Europe can't get its act together.

India is thinking about other things.

So the UAE, the Gulf has stepped in saying,

the 21st century infrastructure is going to be AI and we're going to power it.

So I missed out on making that explicit.

In honesty, I don't think I would have said in January that we'd see this breakthrough in the UAE.