Unlocking AGI: How Life Changes for Everyone w/ Jack Hidary, Salim Ismail & Dave Blundin | EP #213

Peter Diamandis (0:00)

What does SandboxAQ do, and what do you think about quantum computing?

Jack Hidary (0:03)

SandboxAQ, A for AI, Q for quantum. This is ultimately the twin engines of the transformation of our society. What technology has done for us is model our world, and then be able to change our world using the data from that modeling. The AI and quantum coming together gives us a new superpower, and it's upon us in the next four or five years. 2030 is my prediction where I think we'll have the kind of impact that is business impact, and societal impact. It's not going to be winner takes all.

Dave Blundin (0:32)

These non-intuitive, non-human domains, the AI with the training data is just as good or better there. It's not replacing humans. It's adding things that we otherwise couldn't do.

Salim Ismail (0:42)

Once the capabilities there will have an explosion of imagination.

Peter Diamandis (0:45)

Is there going to be that moment where people go, oh my god?

Jack Hidary (0:49)

I think it's going to be when...

Dave Blundin (0:53)

Now that's a moonshot, ladies and gentlemen.

Peter Diamandis (1:03)

All right, everybody, welcome to our Moonshots episode. We're going to be recording an episode here in Riyadh at FII9 of our Moonshots podcast. I'm very pleased to be joined by our Moonshot mates, Salim Ismail, the head of EXO. Salim, welcome. Let's give it up for Salim Ismail, everybody. All right, right here. Dave Blundin, my other Moonshot mate. Give it up for Dave Blundin, Dave. All right, buddy. And as a special guest, we have here Jack Hidary, the CEO of SandboxAQ. Jack, bring it up.

Jack, I can always count on you to bring the hat.

Salim Ismail (1:53)

And the energy.

Peter Diamandis (1:54)

And the energy, for sure.

Jack Hidary (1:56)

Woo, let's do it.

Peter Diamandis (1:57)

A fusion power source.

Jack Hidary (1:58)

Let's do it.

Peter Diamandis (2:02)

So in our Moonshot conversation today, gentlemen, I want to cover three subjects. I want you to bring all of it to the table. Don't hold back. We're in the middle of this incredible occasion with 6,000 of our closest friends.

Salim Ismail (2:16)

Quick question. How many of you in the audience have listened to the podcast?

Jack Hidary (2:21)

All right, a lot of fans.

Peter Diamandis (2:23)

Amazing. So this is a conversation on three subjects today. The first is energy. The second is robotics. So we're going to wrap up because we've got Jack here on quantum. So let's begin with energy. Question ultimately is what do we do with abundant energy? Let me just look at my notes here one moment.

So today, China has added 429 gigawatts of new power in 2024, as opposed to the US at 51 gigawatts of power. There is an electron gap that's significant. We're seeing the emergence of small module reactors, SMRs. We're seeing basically corporations going out and buying their own nuclear power sources, investing in Gen 4 fission, investing in fusion. By my last count, there's 37 fusion backed, or 37 fusion VC backed companies that are in production. But we're still woefully and adequately short in the United States and most in the world for energy. What are your thoughts? Jack, can we kick us off?

Jack Hidary (3:36)

Sure. Peter, it's fascinating. In energy right now, we're in a very odd, limited period of scarcity. So we're not seeing the big picture, which is abundance is coming very soon. Somebody wrote a book about abundance. Who? Okay. Right now, if you look at, for example, gas turbines, 40 percent of electricity in the United States, about 35 percent in Europe is supplied by gas. An increasing amount here in the Gulf is moving to gas as well.

What is the wait time right now to get a gas turbine? Something that looks like a propeller that allows you to make electricity. I'll take bids starting at six months. What's the wait time for getting a gas turbine? Two years, five years. It's four and a half years right now. So GE, Mitsubishi Heavy and Siemens are the producers. Four-year wait. They're not willing to actually make more capacity because the last time they did, they got burned. And so that's not happening. So we have this little odd period where there's lots of data centers, lots of AI demand, open AI, stargates, all kinds of stuff happening, but you can't, it's very hard to make it happen. What's going to happen starting though in seven, eight, nine years is we're going to flip the script to abundance. And what's going to happen is the SMRs that you just mentioned, Peter, on the nuclear side are kicking in, other nuclear is kicking in. Various governments right now are about to build factories to make more turbines, and so that's really going to be fixed as well. And then in terms of solar and batteries, we're going to see step function change. Right now we're at about 27% efficiency in terms of photons, light, going to electricity in solar panels. That's going to move up because of material science breakthroughs because of quantum.