Mr. Wonderful Warns Most AI Data Centers Will Shut Down (Here’s Who Wins)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: What's different about AI, there's two verticals to invest in. [00:00:03] Speaker 2: Mr. Wonderful himself speaking directly to retail investors. [00:00:08] Speaker 1: Just cloud, compute, and storage is a fantastic investment opportunity. [00:00:12] Speaker 2: You know him from Shark Tank, but Kevin O'Leary is also building one of the largest data centers in the world. [00:00:18] Speaker 1: The amount of demand just for compute capacity is insatiable for Q4 of 2027. [00:00:25] Speaker 2: He explains what investors need to know about the AI build-out happening right now. [00:00:30] Speaker 1: This change in our economy is going to consume a tremendous amount of power, no matter how you cut it. [00:00:36] Speaker 2: He also shares how retail investors can spot those winning AI stocks and the ones where it might be time to say, I'm out. [00:00:43] Speaker 1: 60-65% will get shut down in the next 24 months. [00:00:46] Speaker 2: Kevin, thank you so much for being here today. We are excited to get your expertise for our audience today. [00:00:52] Speaker 1: Great to be here. Thank you so much. [00:00:53] Speaker 2: Yes. So I know you've been investing and have had incredible success with dozens of companies over the years. You started in software. You were early there. You were early on crypto. You've been early on a lot of different companies on Shark Tank, too. But AI is a new ballgame, and I know you're focusing a lot of your efforts there right now. I want to start with just how big of a deal AI is for opportunities for investors compared to anything that you've invested in before. [00:01:19] Speaker 1: It reminds me very much of how disruptive the Internet was in its early days when people are trying to figure out what is it? How is it going to affect business? Where are the profits going to come from? Because back then it was all measured by eyeballs. What's different about AI, there's two verticals to invest in. The power vertical, because as you know, given all the controversy about data centers, not just domestically, but globally, this change in our economy is going to consume a tremendous amount of power, no matter how you cut it. So that's one vertical to think about investing in. And then AI compute, which is a little different than just talking about AI, because people keep forgetting the more we digitize our economy, the more we take our cell phones and use them, and the more we adapt to digitization for commerce, you need a tremendous amount of storage. And so it's, you know, people are thinking that, well, AI is using all the data centers. That's not true at all. Just cloud compute and storage is a fantastic investment opportunity, which is already a proven model. I mean, look at the growth of AWS and what Google is doing and Microsoft and everybody else and all the hyperscalers, but so much of what they do has nothing to do with AI. So those are the two big verticals to invest in, the power vertical, and then capacity growth in all things digital. Those are the themes for the next five years. [00:02:40] Speaker 2: Those may very well be the growth areas of the next five years in the market, but right now in the short term, it's a little scary for investors who are looking at a lot of the AI companies that are working to build out that compute power right now in a kind of historic pullback. The market has pulled back significantly this week on many of those companies that you were talking about, a lot of it due to fears of how much spend is happening right now, how much debt they're taking on to actually build out that AI infrastructure. And so it's all led to a lot of volatility and a lot of fear in the market, especially this week, and investors are feeling that in their portfolios. What advice do you have for retail investors who are looking at their portfolios this week and seeing a pretty major downtrend in a lot of these AI growth stocks? [00:03:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the fundamental question is, do you think the market is satisfied with the capacity coming on in both power and in data center of compute capacity? There isn't enough of it. Demand is probably 3x what we have right now. So I don't see a slowdown at all in the next three years at all in terms of the demand for compute power. I understand the volatility and the speculation all the time, but you've got to understand, I don't see any reduction in the demand for power. Just the economy itself needs more grid capacity. So you're going to see a lot more work converting that gas into electricity. And people keep forgetting it's not just AI. We need digital storage capacity, massive amounts of it, just to maintain the telco and everything else that we do with digitization in the economy. And so very often when I hear from tenants or have these discussions, they're just looking for compute capacity with low latency in their locations in terms of speed on fiber. So I don't see that slowing down. So, you know, if you, my attitude is what percentage of your portfolio do you want in this space? Because really data center development is a real estate play actually. And so I like real estate a lot and I, you know, it's always been 20, 30% of what I do. So I'm very much comfortable about getting into this in a broad basis. But I, you know, for reasons of diversification, I certainly am now in basically four countries and countries with low cost of energy is the key. And I would be in Saudi Arabia at one cents a kilowatt hour. But obviously to raise capital for that jurisdiction right now is going to be difficult. [00:05:05] Speaker 2: And this is exactly why I am so excited to have you on the show today, giving retail investors an inside look and really pulling back the curtain of what it takes to build data centers. For those who don't know, Kevin is entrenched in the data center story. His company, O'Leary Digital, is building one of the largest data center projects in the U.S. right now. They're also invested in a number of data center projects and different companies who are building data centers all over the world. So we're going to cover a lot of those issues today, talking about bottlenecks in power and the demand for more power, talking about the demand for compute power and memory. He's also going to dive into the controversy and some of the political conflict behind some of the data center projects, specifically here in the U.S. And what that looks like globally as well. So we have so much to cover in this interview today, Kevin. I'm excited for the inside insights for our viewers. I want to start right now by going back to the volatility we've seen in the market this week, specifically on the stocks that are just like your company. There are companies that are building data centers, and they've seen some of the most volatility this week. CoreWeave dropped about 25% in just a few days. Other companies like Applied Digital or IREN that are working to build data centers, they've dropped roughly 50% from the highs they saw this summer. A lot of it based on the fears that investors have about how much money they are spending to build these projects. So that's where I'm hoping you can share some insights. What does it actually take as far as capital to build some of these data center projects, not just building them today, but also planning for the future and the upgrades they'll need to stay up to date with all the advancements happening in AI right now? [00:06:45] Speaker 1: What we do is provide the power and the shell, and we let the tenant decide what they want to put in it, whether it's AI computer, whether it's cloud storage or whatever it is they want, and they decide on the upgrade cycle. But what they've told us in the last two years is, look, we used to ask you for 250 to 500 megawatts. That's not enough anymore. The CapEx is so high, we want a minimum of 1.4 gigawatts. So that's a, generally speaking from scratch, a $16 billion investment until you're operational, $8 billion equity, $8 billion in debt, more or less. But you've got to provide the power. So my job is to provide the path to permit, the path to power, the shell, the construction, and make it ready for the tenant to just roll in their racks and provide all the cooling systems and everything else. [00:07:35] Speaker 2: Okay, you just mentioned a lot of different companies we talk about on this show all the time. The different stock tickers we talk about that are involved in cooling of data centers, the memory stocks and that kind of shortage, we talk about those stocks all the time. But another thing that you've mentioned a number of times is that power bottleneck. And we have mentioned many different companies who are involved in that. We talk about it often as one of the biggest bottlenecks holding back the data center infrastructure in our country, and that's the power crunch. So as someone who's actually working to build data centers, how are you navigating this major bottleneck and actually working to make sure there's power once you have a data center built? [00:08:14] Speaker 1: This is a global phenomenon. So I want to find jurisdictions that have the lowest cost power. The lowest cost power measured by kilowatt hours is $0.01 a kilowatt hour in Saudi Arabia. There are issues there, obviously, right now. So when you think about a data center costing $16 billion for 1.4 gig, that's one gig of compute power, it's difficult to put in the ground until the conflicts are resolved there. But yet they have the cheapest power on Earth. Second to them is sort of sub-six cents of kilowatt hour U.S. dollars in Finland and Norway, and also in Alberta, Canada, where they have either billions of cubes of stranded natural gas, or they have an abundance of hydropower in the case of Norway, or an abundance of nuclear power in the case of Finland. So I want to be invested in those geographies. The way I've done that is I have a holding in BitZero, a company that has holdings in Norway and Finland. It's a publicly traded company on NASDAQ. You know, I invested in it when it's private and eventually went public. And I'm pretty excited about what they'll be doing over the next few years because they own land and power and permits in these jurisdictions that have abundance of hydro and nuclear. The Canadian investments and the one I have in Utah, those are private, but again, they're built on, you know, the premise that right now in North America, it's very, very difficult to get permitted to build a data center, as you're well aware of the controversy in almost every state and province. And so they're very hard to come by. And I'm very fortunate to have some very interesting opportunities in both those, but they're private. And eventually I hope to, you know, we'll see how, what happens to those, but it goes to my power vertical and the capacity compute power. That's this whole investment theme. And by the way, it's my largest area of investing. I'm really saying that this is, you know, well over 20% of our, of our book right now, because we're very, very bullish on what's going to happen. [00:10:13] Speaker 2: Okay. So your largest area of investing, is it specifically in this one company or is it just in building out the AI data center and the energy verticals that you're talking about? [00:10:21] Speaker 1: It's in multiple holdings. It's just, can you find a jurisdiction where you can get a permit, where they have enough water, where they have fiber, where you've got an adequate source of power at sub six cents a kilowatt hour. What makes it so interesting is if you go back, I don't know, 24 months and you see all of the data center announcements all over North America. At this point, I, I'm pretty sure that 65% of those either have a fatal flaw or they'll never be built or a moratorium. Has been swept into the state that stops them from being built, which makes any site you have that is permanent and has power and has fiber extremely valuable because there's less and less of that available. So you really want to invest in companies or at least in projects where there's a path to permit within 24 months. [00:11:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, that path to permit is essential and a part of the infrastructure also is that power piece that you talked about. And I know from your own projects in Utah and other ones that you're working on, it's all about making sure you have power there. And I know there's plenty of other companies. We talk about a lot of different companies on this show who were once into Bitcoin mining, cryptocurrency mining, and are now making the switch to AI because they have access to that power. It's a trend we've seen time and time again. And so I want to hear a little bit of your theory of investing in owning the land, owning the data centers, owning the power as far as this whole AI infrastructure build out goes. You know, why own those versus owning the chips or the memory or the other pieces of AI that you could be investing in? [00:11:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's a great question. And here's the answer. If you could go back 200 years or 250 years and were offered the opportunity to invest in gold mines or jeans, picks, and shovels, I would have taken the jeans, picks, and shovels because everybody needs those as they build out. And once in a while, you get a hit. When you find a mine, you find gold. That's great, but that's far more speculative. If you think about what you actually have to get done before you ever attract a hyperscaler or a tenant, it is so complex that the barrier to entry is exactly that. You need the land. And you need the permit. And you need the EPA air permit, state and federal. Then you need the water rights. Then you need the dark fiber. Then you need the power. And it all has to come together because one thing you said earlier, you talked about some of the miners switching over. And there's a good reason they did that because they already had attachments to the grid. As you know, the federal mandate now is you just can't do that anymore. Most states have said, no, you have to bring your own power. So how are you going to bring your own power? Well, in most states, you're going to have to find nat gas, an abundance of natural gas. And you're going to have to buy the turbines to convert that into electricity, but without using too much water or causing too much pollution or making too much noise. And luckily, in the last 20 years, the turbine technology has advanced so far that the concerns people had about data centers and noise pollution and overabundance of water use, that's all fallen behind now. Most modern day data centers don't use more than what a golf course uses in water. I'm not so concerned about that in terms of getting water permits, but I am concerned that you can see what's going on. People don't want them within three miles of where there's a residence. So if you look at the polling, over 70% of people say, I don't want a data center in the state. When you take the same poll and you say, what if it was three miles away and provided a job paying $150,000? Well, then you get a much different answer. But what you're getting now is you have to go find sites within driving distance of communities, but not too far that you can't get the employees. Makes it even harder, you know, we, we look at these opportunities, um, with a whole team of people. Most of what we get shown have fatal flaws. Something's wrong or the state itself has put a moratorium in place. So we're pretty comfortable that we're one of the 15 groups that can pull this off around the world. And, um, we're just doing our thing. [00:14:26] Speaker 2: Yeah. You clearly know the ins and outs of what it takes to build a data center. These projects are massive as most people know, but I think having your knowledge is what investors are so excited to learn from today because you know the ins and outs and where a lot of the effort has to go. And that effort usually means resources, money, and that's good for investors who are looking for places to put their money on this AI story. I want to talk a little bit more about what you said earlier about for you, you're looking to invest in places that are in specific regions of the world, not just the U.S. You have a lot of experience of trying to build data centers in the U.S. I think you're currently working to build the largest data center project in the U.S. How does that compare to the process that BitZero, the company you mentioned earlier, is doing in Finland or Norway or Alberta, like you mentioned, with other companies that you're working with? How does the process differ in different parts of the world with what you're meeting or what you're finding in the U.S.? [00:15:20] Speaker 1: Well, I think it's state by state, and you've seen some big moves in the last two weeks in Texas, for example. If you're in the Panhandle, you're probably okay, but if you're anywhere else, you probably don't have water rights right now, and you're probably not going to get them for quite a while until after the midterms, if at all. So other states, New York and many others have put a heavy scrutiny. I mean, the problem is internal rate of return, IRR, is based on time. So if you go to jurisdiction where you have no chance of getting a permit for three years, you're not going to get a return that you can finance. And so by stalling these things community by community, they will not get data centers. And I think data centers will become more and more popular when people start to figure out, wow, really good jobs, incredible tax-based revenues for, you know, supporting both power, because now you have to bring your own power, you can give some back to the community. But also, you're paying a lot of taxes, and so you're supporting a whole community, and I think in my case, in Box Elder, will probably be somewhere near 30% of Box Elder's entire budget within the first 24 months, and more than half of it after 30 months. And so when people start to realize how big that is, I think there's going to be a lot more support for it. In terms of jurisdictions, I would say the country that has made, that's really put their red carpet out to get more data centers has been Norway, because they have so much electricity not being used. And so they're very smart about it. They decide where they're going to put it, and you have to work with the community, and that's where our first facility was built through BitZero. Finland is doing more scrutiny in terms of, you know, what you can build and how much power you're taking off the grid, which is coming from nuclear power. Then Alberta is very pro-data center, because they have a trillion-plus cubes of stranded net gas. And then the U.S. is state by state. And I think everybody that's interested in investing in this knows the stories that are changing state by state every day. And the data center community is getting much smarter about what they message. Originally did a pretty poor job of it, and now they realize how much backlash has occurred. And so I think it's tiptoeing through the tulips back into a neutral position now. [00:17:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, those headlines are absolutely everywhere, and it can move stocks based on companies if they've got a project that gets delayed. I think what you said earlier is so key for investors to pay attention to, and that's delays equal, can you actually make this project work financially for your investors? And so I want to talk about that with the project that you have going, that you're working on, even with BitZero's projects. What is that timeline towards profitability? I think for a lot of investors, that's the fear with how much money goes into building these data centers, how much time it takes to build them. Will there be that demand still there once they're built? Will they actually pay for themselves, or are they putting too much money forward? That's what we hear fear in the market often, is that fear that there's too much capital being spent on this infrastructure right now. So for you, what is that timeline to profitability in these companies? [00:18:25] Speaker 1: So it's all based on two factors, path to permit for construction, and we talked about that. You really want to get that done within 18 months. And then you want to have the turbines delivered at the same time. So you're doing project management. You're probably going to spend, for every gig of just pre-planning costs, $20 to $30 million, just to get the permits and the engineering drawings so that you can apply for the permit, the water and the land and the air issues resolved. But a tenant is not going to give you a lease or do a purchase until they see the path to power. So you have, as the developer, the path to permit issue, but you also have the path to power. And so right now, what the market's demanding a lot of is they would love to see projects up in Q4 of 2027. The amount of demand just for compute capacity, both from the government agencies and from the private sector and the hyperscalers and others, is insatiable for Q4 of 2027. Now, if they can't get that because a lot of these things are getting shut down or delayed, they want it as close to that as they can. Because they have to plan as well their CapEx expenditures because they're rolling in the actual chips, which cost billions of dollars. So you've got a real ballet going on all around the country, waiting to see which of these things advance and which of them gets stalled out. And a lot of it's very political. So you've got to be very, very careful on what you're doing here. I find the barrier to entry is the complexity. I haven't heard many new projects announced in the last seven months. None. And so, at least I know of, the ones that are coming on board are the ones that cleared path to permit that were announced two years ago. So I think what's happening now is capital that doesn't see a path to permit within, you know, 24 months is not interested in investing because you have the debt markets. And once you're stabilized, you want to use the debt markets, you have the equity markets. And so everything has to fall into place. You're building your data up. Here's my water pyramid. Here's my path. Here's my agreements. Everything has to go in there and then investors say, okay, I see a path to permit. I see a path to power. Boom. Here's an offer. [00:20:41] Speaker 2: Incredibly important factors for investors to pay attention to when they're evaluating an individual company or stock in this data center space. Some great insights there. I want to, for a minute, talk about the broader picture on compute power and some of the fears that people have for the whole industry. And that's whether we could be building too much compute power too fast. We had a guest on the show just a couple of weeks ago who had a very contrarian view saying that even though, yes, there is a lot of demand for compute power right now, he believes there are too many data center projects underway right now. Well, that three to five years down the road, once all of them are built, the pricing power won't be there because we'll have too much supply. And of course, if you don't have as much pricing power a few years down the road, that's going to impact the profit of some of these data center companies and could also impact their ability to pay back the loans they're all taking on right now to get these data centers built. So what's your thought on that? Do you think it's possible we could be building too much compute capacity too fast right now? [00:21:41] Speaker 1: No, I don't agree with that. My personal opinion is there's many projects that have been announced and 65% of them will never be built. They will never get there. They will have a fatal flaw or a political reason not to be built. A governor would have, you know, shut it down or whatever else. I mean, right now we got the midterms. And I think if you're a politician and you can use stopping data centers to get elected, you're going to do it. I mean, it's just the nature of politics, but that's like 40 days away. So I don't think it's a long term. If I were a governor, I'd want to get as many data centers as I could for when the turnaround is because I want the union jobs, electrical, plumbing, construction, massive amount of jobs there. And then, of course, I want the tax base because eventually you're taking off a huge amount of taxes from these facilities. And in terms of overcapacity, I don't think so. I think it's going to be really, really difficult. If you talk about 65% of what was planned to be built, never to be built, I think it's going to be very scarce. And so what I think is going on, it's a very interesting market, is you've probably got 11 tenants in aggregate of which you can call six of them hyperscalers. They know every single project, because they have location teams and they know every single event on every single site based on the politics, the counties they're in, the governor of the state, and the most important thing, the path to power. What is the date when the first kilowatt is going to be built, you know, and then just any kind of power at all. And you have this other interesting issue, which we haven't talked about yet. You've got the Clarity Act, which may get passed after the midterms. That's going to put even more pressure on compute power as more companies go on blockchain and digitize. I mean, we need more power like crazy and a lot more compute capacity. [00:23:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that your take is far more common. I hear that from more people. That was very a contrarian view that I heard, and I'm glad that you addressed it a little bit more. I also think what you continue to say about midterm elections having a big impact on what's happening in the AI market, especially for data center companies, is very real right now. I think maybe the pullback that we're seeing is in part due to what's happening in the midterms and those lawmakers, the decision makers, putting more of their time investment into getting reelected versus trying to get a data center passed in their community or their state. So I think that that is a very real impact on what's happening in some of the stocks right now, and I don't think that people should ignore that. [00:24:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you're right about that. It's just you're just trying to figure out what's signal and what's noise. The way to build a portfolio and the way I'm doing it is I want liquidity, and I have that with bid zero. I can go in and out of the stock based on what I think the valuations are. But on a private deal like what I'm doing in Utah or in Alberta, those are private. There's no liquidity there. [00:24:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And I think investors are doing that themselves, too, right now, especially our retail market, are in and out of some of these stocks. As they see the prices move, as that volatility happens. But one thing that I think retail investors want to know the most is that that fact that you said a minute ago, about 65 percent of these data center projects won't go to completion. That's a really big number. And I think as an investor, you want to make sure that you're not getting in on one of these companies that's going to not get to completion. [00:25:07] Speaker 1: Listen, I'm signaling that warning out there because I'm just watching it happen. And the reasons you won't get there is fatal flaw, which would be you can't get the water, you don't have the fiber, you can't get the power. You made assumptions about maybe tapping into a gas line, you couldn't do it. But the biggest risk is political because you may be halfway through the permitting process and just get shut down with a moratorium on data centers, depending on what state you're in or what jurisdiction you're in in other countries. You've got to keep your ear to the ground and that can happen to anybody. It's very, very difficult and there's no guarantees. That's why I like diversification, geographic diversification. Norway, Finland, Canada, the USA, you know, the chances of everything getting shut down, pretty low. So it's sort of, you know, you never know what's going to happen. But I put my bets out both in liquidity and public companies and private projects, both in debt and equity. I just keep talking to the tenants and the demand they have for compute power and power itself. Insatiable. So I'm not worried. I'm just, I bet you, and I bet my stats going to be right, 60, 65% will get shut down in the next 24 months. And then if you've got a path to power, path to permit, path to profitability, you're in a good place. [00:26:24] Speaker 2: Yeah. And we've talked so much about the next two to three years and really getting through midterms. We talked about that near-term advice for investors. I want to get your take long-term. What do you think the long-term vision is for these data centers and how much profitability they could bring for investors? How much revenue they could bring in? Let's talk five years down the road or maybe even 10 years down the road. What's your long-term outlook for the investments that you're making right now? [00:26:49] Speaker 1: I think you should consider them in the same context of commercial real estate. You know, I used to look for 17% to 22% returns in climate control storage for pharmaceutical companies, which remind me so much of the data center business today because they were very, very precise in what they wanted. And that's what we would look at. We'd sort of either buy at cap rates of eight to 12, and then the market would trade them at four to five and a half cap rates. So that's, you know, you're basically getting a 17 plus percent return. When you're developing from scratch, as we're doing in some of our jurisdictions, you're looking for higher returns than that, and you're putting some leverage on. I don't like to use more than 30% leverage, but I think long-term, these are utilities. And so they're going to have distributions on cashflow. They're going to provide power to their communities. They're going to provide tax and capital gains over time because you're sitting on land. And, you know, I love land. I mean, they stopped making it a long time ago. And generally what happens is when you provide a great base of employment, you get a lot of growth in that community, which generally pushes up the value of the land over time. And I think most people don't want to drive more than maybe, you know, 20 minutes to the data center. So they want to be three miles away. So our planning on where we're putting these is generally a non-agricultural, because you don't want to replace farmland with a data center. It's a hard sell. But I think if you're within the community three to four miles, so they can't hear it, they can't see it, but it's there to employ them, that's the right strategy. [00:28:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, I love what you said about land, Kevin, that it's always a good investment because you can't make more of it. My farming grandparents always used to say the exact same thing, but I also think you're touching on maybe one of the key issues behind all the controversy that you're finding in a lot of communities where these data centers are being built. There is that connection to the land, and many people know this is a very good and valuable investment for a number of reasons. And I know you also said earlier that one of the biggest risks to these data center projects is that political risk, and it contributes to that stat you gave of the 60 to 65 percent of these projects may never be completed. So what's the workaround? What do companies like yours do to actually make sure their project happens? How do you deal with communities and local governments to actually help eliminate some of the political risk that is very real in this space? [00:29:20] Speaker 1: And everybody that's building this is obviously working with government in every jurisdiction. Sometimes the government wants a percentage of the capacity for their own use. And so you're working with the tenant to provide that to the government with their own specifications. So it further makes it a little more complex. But as I said earlier, and why I'm an investor in this, I like really hairy, complex projects that people say you'll never get that done. That is what gets me up in the morning. And so my strategy is always to find the people that have done it before, build a team, give them an incentive to do it. I don't think anybody has a better team than I have in terms of the history of building data centers. I've got people that I pulled off Elon's team. I've got Carl Agron, who built the first international for the military. Paul Palangian, who's been in real estate for 40 years, developing lease deals. So I'm pretty comfortable. Brian Inskeep's in Empower, does a lot of the electrical work and everything else. So when tenants come and look at who we have at the table, and Zach, our CEO, I pulled him out of large projects. And this guy, he worked on mega projects. Everybody on our team has done it before. So it's not like we're green. But, you know, even with all that, it's still very complex and very hard. And frankly, I like that. There's a lot less competition. It's just, I don't see a lot of people saying, gee, I'm going to go down that path, watching what's been happening for the last two years. It's been unbelievably controversial. And I love that, too. [00:31:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, this is why you are successful. You have that grit to like to do hard things. And I think that that speaks to your success. One thing that I heard there that I want to maybe end this on is talking about the race that it is to get these data centers up and off the ground and running. And I want to know how much of an advantage companies who already have that building built, who are already, you can see that shape taking place. They've got shovels in the ground. They've got walls up. They've got electrical being built. You know, we interviewed the CEO of BitZero just a little while ago, and he had an image of what looked like an already fairly complete data center behind him. How much of an advantage do companies who already have that infrastructure built have in this race, if they've got that head start getting through that? Does that give them a big advantage? [00:31:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. That's why he has two big advantages. Number one, he has liquidity. He's got a public company, so he can do debt and equity issuance. Plus, he's got operations. So he's proven that he can do it and he can run it profitably. So, I mean, that's a huge advantage versus a private project, which you're just getting off the ground. In my view, as an investor, you want both. So I like the liquidity of BitZero. I like the location. I like their power contracts, and that's part of my portfolio. But I like the potential of my private deals and the complexity of them long term. So I can be in both, and I am. But it's part of the investment thesis. You want the ability to, you know, figure out how to get there. And if you really want to know what it takes, the minute you sign the power contract, and you've got the water permit, and you've got the EPA on your side because they've passed your ask for air quality, that's when it gets really interesting. That's when you get a geometric increase in the value of your project. You've got to get all those pieces in order, and it's really hard. It's really hard. It's like whack-a-mole. You finish one thing, you get another thing, you get another thing. Every day there's a new problem, a new opportunity. But slowly but surely, you push the stone up the hill. That's how it works, and that's how every project works, including the political controversy. And I've seen plenty of that. [00:33:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, any final words and advice for retail investors who might be a little bit afraid of this AI story and all of the volatility and all of the complexity you just described? If that makes them feel fear, what advice do you have for investors who want to get into AI? Maybe is that fear realistic to have right now, or does that fear just mean that there's opportunity? [00:33:29] Speaker 1: Well, there is opportunity. I mean, AI, you can buy the behemoth stocks. You can, and obviously, if Anthropik goes public, there's another one. You know, Microsoft, obviously. I think in AI as well, there's going to be an opportunity in quantum computing because for security, it's going to become a big deal, as it is right now. And people are worried about the models and everything else. There's many, many, if you just want to do public companies, there are big ones that you can buy with less vol in them. And I just named a few off, but I would think that within the investment portfolio, I like, you know, bid zero as for liquidity and I can add and subtract to that position anytime I want. But I also like the picks and shovels that I'm doing in these jurisdictions privately. So, and those are debt markets primarily, and those issuance of debt do get syndicated. So, I think, think about this. The reason the markets are at almost new highs almost every month is because the earnings have been spectacular. Why are they spectacular? 10 or 5, 15, 20% increase in productivity, in some cases, cash, free cash flows, all from AI. So, that's not going to stop. These companies are going to, I don't care what sector you look at. All 11 sectors are having blowout opportunities, company to company, based on using AI tools, not necessarily developing AI, just using the tools that are available, whether they're private or public companies. So, I think we're still in this. And I don't know, everybody's been telling me, oh, it's going to end tomorrow. I don't think so. I think it continues and continues and continues. So, you want some exposure. If you decide the more conservative way, just public companies. But my way is portfolio-based with, you know, some liquidity and some less liquidity in terms of the projects in Utah and, you know, Alberta, etc. [00:35:17] Speaker 2: Wonderful. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for the time today. Incredible advice for investors today. And a really good look behind the curtain of what it takes to build a data center. As you were talking about the different areas, whether it was the water or turbines, a lot of different public companies also came to mind. The things that we talk about as those infrastructure plays. And we cover a lot of those stocks in an in-depth interview with Dan Ives. He was the renowned tech analyst with Wedbush for a number of years. And this summer, he just went out on his own with the company Yorkville Ives, where they're investing in a lot of up-and-coming tech companies and AI companies as well. We dive into dozens of different stocks in this interview. It will be released in another live premiere on Monday at market close. Join me in the chat again for that live premiere right at market close on Monday. And if you want to learn more about BitZero, the company that Kevin is invested in that's building those data centers in Finland and Norway, their ticker symbol is AIBZ. We have a link in the description and in the comments for you to learn more. I also recently interviewed their CEO. You can find that full interview here and learn more about what it's like to build data centers in Finland and Norway and how the power grid is very different there.