Energy: Hyperscalers as utility firms.

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This is the sixth of our new weekly strategic series of Top Ten Anticipations for 2025 – 2030. Topic number five, Augmented Reality and the impact on mobile devices, can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/futurehorizonco_augmented-reality-and-the-impact-on-mobile-activity-7266685106495336449-V8OH?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop​
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Spreadsheets. Groceries. Web Searches. Nuclear Power.
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Many Hyperscale companies, including Google​, ​Microsoft​, and ​Amazon​, have signed massive deals recently to acquire nuclear power to feed their energy-hungry Data Centres (DCs).
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DCs are the backbone of digital innovation powered by the Cloud, but their enormous energy needs bring their own challenges.
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Growing demand may see DC investment exceed $2 trillion globally between 2025 and 2030 when we look at the broader infrastructure ecosystem.
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Recently, Google inked the first contract in its history to purchase electricity from several Small Modular Reactors (SMRs - see later story below).
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Amazon has already signed several agreements to support the development of nuclear energy projects - including enabling the construction of several new SMRs.
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A previously closed nuclear plant in the US will be reopened to meet the energy needs of Microsoft’s DCs.
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This demand for more infrastructure capacity depends on what you can think of affectionately as “the plumbing”.
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It’s required to drive the whole coming wave of emerging technologies and digital transformation of societies (perhaps even our species); it will give the kiss of life to many industries such as utilities and telcos.
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In prior tech generations there was clear demarcation: former state-owned companies such as telcos built the infrastructure, and software firms had no assets – not anymore, and the period 2025 to 2030 will see this adaptation continue.
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The investment required for building all this infrastructure is often being provided by private equity and venture capital firms: the large Hyperscalers are signing long-term lease agreements.
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If the growth of demand for Cloud services suffers a setback before 2030 – due to a significant event such as a global financial crisis or widespread conflict – then the Hyperscalers may have a surfeit of infrastructure at their fingertips, requiring diversification.
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Before 2030, therefore, your 365, Workspace, or Prime membership may also include energy, or connectivity.
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By 2030 we may also see digital services having clear energy efficiency ratings - in the same way that modern commodity appliances do - thus giving users the power (pun intended) to make informed decisions.
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More broadly, future electricity demand globally is forecast to grow substantially under all scenarios – it could potentially double by 2050.
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Hyperscalers are thinking big and looking ahead.
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Next up in our strategic series of Top Ten Anticipations for 2025 – 2030 is titled "The state of AI in our daily lives come 2030" - which we'll deliver in HORIZON next week.

Kill Chicken Scare Monkey.

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An old Chinese idiom, it refers to making an example out of someone in order to threaten others.
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According to an old folktale, a street entertainer earned a lot of money with his dancing monkey.
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One day, when the monkey refused to dance, the entertainer killed a live chicken in front of the monkey and then the monkey resumed dancing.
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In one of the world’s toughest crackdowns, Australian lawmakers have passed rules banning under 16s from social media.
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The minimum age of 16 is the highest set by any country so far, and does not include exemptions for existing users or those with parental consent.
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The restrictions will likely not take effect for at least twelve months.
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Impacted platforms are likely to include those from ​Meta​, ​Snap Inc.​ and ​TikTok​ - with firms liable to be fined up to A$50m if they don't comply.
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Sites that can be accessed without an account (such as YouTube) are exempt, as are messaging apps and gaming services.
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Key practical questions have been left unanswered, not only around how the ban will work but also aspects such as its impact on privacy and social connection.
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For example, how social media has been defined in the legislation is broad and extensive, which may lead to scope creep and regulatory over-reach.
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The "why" is clear: protecting children from the adverse impact, particularly to mental health, of negative content, harmful interactions, and potential addiction.
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The "what" and, in particular, the "how" are where things get contentious.
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The government will rely on some form of age-verification technology to implement the restrictions; options will be tested in the coming months.
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Though the intent is well-meaning, it's not addressing root-cause and will simply shift the issue elsewhere; it feels like a blunt instrument.
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Digital-native youngsters, often far more tech-savvy than their guardians, will find ways around the blocks and barriers, such as using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to disguise themselves.
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In 2023 France introduced legislation to block social media access for children under 15 without parental consent; research indicates almost half of users were able to avoid the ban using a VPN.
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Kids who find a way past verification controls won’t be fined, and nor will their parents.
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Social media restrictions won't in isolation remedy cyber bullying, screen addiction, the production of harmful content, or young people falling prey to criminals.
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It's a complex and controversial topic - the right balance navigates progression with protection.
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Digital literacy educational programmes - such as that offered in Finland - which teach children to think critically about what they see online are a better use of focus and investment.
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Time will tell if this brings about real future change of a positive nature for young people...or if history deems it a symbolic piece of legislation that was unenforceable in practicality.

Not too hot, not too cold - just right.

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Goldilocks and the three…nuclear data centres.
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As noted in the first piece of this edition of HORIZON, data centres are the backbone of digital innovation powered by the Cloud, but their massive energy needs bring their own challenges.
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Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology may be a near-term future way to produce all of the power that our increased daily digitalisation demands.
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SMRs offer advantages in safety, efficiency, and flexibility over traditional nuclear plants, using passive safety systems and operating at lower power levels.
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A Swiss nuclear energy startup, Deep Atomic, has unveiled plans for an SMR specifically to meet the demands of the modern data centre.
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Founded in 2023 and with a strapline of "scalable nuclear power for the digital age", the proposed MK60 pressurised light water reactor design offers a compact and scalable solution.
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It aims to deliver a reliable and sustainable energy source on-site at a data centre, removing reliance on the grid as well as lowering operating costs and environmental impact.
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It is designed to supply 60 megawatts of electricity along with 60 megawatts of cooling capacity - ideal for high-density compute demands such as those from Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads.
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This may be the "just right" spot: small enough for series production, and large enough to provide sufficient power plus economic viability.
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As well as providing the requisite oomph, there's an ESG angle too.
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The company promises "reliable zero-carbon electricity and energy efficient cooling, thereby significantly reducing carbon footprints, and helping data centers meet their increasingly stringent sustainability goals.”
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Interestingly, the solution is also designed to modular and scalable.
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It proposes a "plug-and-play fission design" of up to 1000MW+, so infrastructure providers may start small and scale to multiples as needed to serve larger deployments.
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Our future will doubtless need evermore clean and reliable power to drive both digital innovation and also environmental protection.
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The need to dramatically scale up energy capacity for digital expansion, while simultaneously decoupling this growth from climate impact, represents a significant stumbling block to humanity's technological progress.
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As data centre power demand soars, particularly with the rise of AI, nuclear power has emerged as a viable solution for reliable, clean energy, potentially helping balance growth with long-term climate sustainability.
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Topically, at the recent COP29 summit six new countries (Nigeria, El Salvador, Kenya, Kosovo, Turkey and Kazakhstan) joined the existing 31 nations with the Declaration to Triple Global Nuclear Energy Capacity by 2050.
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Renewables such as solar are great when we consider the future decarbonised energy mix - but let's also take inspiration from the fact that the sun is itself a gigantic nuclear reactor.
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A bright future is ahead for Goldilocks - and us!

Humanoid workers are on the horizon.

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Leading company Figure has announced that the developmental production partnership with automotive firm BMW now has an end-to-end autonomous robot fleet in operation for manufacturing.
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It requires both dexterity and precision: < 1cm wide sheet metal insertion which is difficult even for human hands to grasp and transition.
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Running 1000 placements per day fully autonomously, the team has made the F.02 model faster, more accurate and more reliable - operating the use case with a 7x higher reliability and success rate plus 400% faster.
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In terms of speed, the hardware has the capacity to move far faster than any human so there is much more to come around operational efficiency.
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Whilst Figure aims of bringing a general purpose humanoid to life (it has a published Master Plan to do so), it needs a revenue stream...which comes from meeting specific use cases such as this automotive one.
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The US doesn't have it all it's own way here: China is also pushing ahead.
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For several years already China has installed over half of new industrial robots globally.
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Already dominating the markets for batteries and electric vehicles, China is well-placed to exploit the potential of more advanced humanoids.
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Over two dozen Chinese companies showed off their wares at the World Robot Conference in August held in Beijing, with many humanoid robots designed to work in factories and warehouses.
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The standard Chinese growth model is being deployed: explicit government mandate results in a broad range of companies supported by deep supply chains - collaborative ecosystems are created.
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China has fast iteration capabilities, and the means to produce successful products at vast scale (reducing costs).
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More isolated progress is also taking shape, such as by Japanese inventor Dr Hiroshi Ishiguro who has engineered six robot clones of himself over the last 18 years (see pic - can you work out which is real?).
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Though it cannot walk, the roboticist has given the "HI6" model 53 degrees of freedom via 16 pneumatic actuators; though the head is plastic, the skeleton is metal.
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His teleoperated android has life-like human skin (made from silicon), can duplicate the facial expressions of its maker, and is already giving lectures and fielding questions from students at Osaka University.
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Earlier this year the annual global market for humanoid robots was forecast by Goldman Sachs to reach $38 billion by 2035.
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We're many years from general-purpose robots commonly walking amongst us, so no need to be too fearful - yet.

How far can you travel in 8 minutes and 20 seconds?

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On average, this is the time it takes light from the Sun to reach Earth.
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It has to traverse a distance of 149 million kilometres.
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As we move towards a net-zero future, clean energy from solar power is great, though a single site cannot produce power 24x7 and is also at the mercy of changeable weather
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If the tech could rise above - literally - the vagaries of the climate with a space solar power farm, then we might have constant energy all the time.
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At an altitude of 35,786 km such a power station would remain fixed in the sky in one spot over the Earth where there would be near-continuous sunlight unfiltered by air, clouds, or dust.
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An agreement has recently been signed that will see Iceland become the first country to receive solar power beamed from space via high-frequency microwave.
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Founded in 2022, Space Solar is the company behind this plan, working in partnership with Reykjavik Energy.
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The demonstrator (30 MW initial capacity) is scheduled to go online by 2030.
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However, there are huge technical hurdles to overcome before this can be realised.
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Despite the cost of photovoltaic solar panels plummeting in recent years, there's quite a bit more to it than just slinging them into orbit.
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The arrays in geosynchronous orbit will have to be vast (several kilometres in size); even with reusable rockets the launch costs will enormous.
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The collectors then need to be effectively manufactured up in space, put together like a gigantic model - and even when operational, periodic maintenance will be necessary (ideally, by robots - see above).
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Thus according to NASA, such space-based power may cost 12 to 80 times as much as ground-based renewables.
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Nevertheless, if proven to be successful this new power technology has the potential to help position the world for a carbon-free future.
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Energy security, particularly around consistent baseload provision, is a priority given that power needs continue to rapidly increase; global electricity demand could double by 2050.
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If able to be commercialised and scaled - into orbitting constellations similar to those providing connectivity - it could spark an affordable energy revolution, having far-reaching future impact across the globe.
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It could be used to produce green hydrogen back on Earth, for example.
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Just as putting solar panels into space moves them closer to the Sun, this emerging tech could move us closer towards a greener, more sustainable and net-zero energy future.
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Hot stuff!