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Drew Baglino

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
166 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

Even though there's so much innovation happening at the edge of the grid, on the other side of the wire, there's really been no change.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

The world's leading producer of silicon carbide, which is a key power semiconductor, is based here in the U.S.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

And so we should be leveraging the applications of that technology here first, manufacturing here at home.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

And if we don't,

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

Yeah.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

So first, thank you for having me today here representing the Heron Power team.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

So at Heron Power, we build power electronics to accelerate the electricity sector.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

Over the last four decades, in parallel with the Moore's Law improvement of transistors in compute, there's been a similar improvement in power transistors.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

And

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

Over those decades, it's enabled more and more applications.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

We see them in how we charge our phones, in telecommunications, in data centers.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

But really, that improvement hasn't been brought to the grid itself.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

And in a time of growing demand for electricity for so many different reasons, all of them positive, and the fact that electricity growth and energy growth is correlated with economic growth and prosperity,

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

We need new solutions, and luckily the power semiconductor space is ready to bring those solutions, and I'm excited to do that at Heron Power.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

We're focused on building solid-state transformers to use silicon and software to replace steel, oil, and copper in power conversion at data centers, large-scale energy installations like solar and battery projects and others.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

Yeah, I can take that first.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

Well, this power semiconductor capability that is enabling solid-state transformers actually is the outgrowth of many decades of partnership between the federal government and academia and industry.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

Both the DOE and the Navy have focused a lot on advanced semiconductors.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

So it just makes sense that the place where this technology was first developed should be the place where all the benefits are commercialized.

The a16z Show
Energy, Minerals, and the Physical Stack Behind AI

The world's leading semiconductor

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