When Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was a Microsoft Corp. executive, access to sufficient electricity wasn’t a concern, nor was the need for physical infrastructure.

Today, the tech company needs electrons—and a lot of them—Burgum said at the recent CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston.

“I was a corporate officer my whole seven years [at Microsoft]. Never went to a capex meeting. It wasn't because I wasn't invited; it was because we didn't have them,” he said.

Offices were leased; staff consisted of programmers and salespeople.

Today, “we are in a serious, serious position right now with a grid where we tilted way too far to intermediate unreliable sources.”

The U.S.’ five biggest tech companies, which are also the world’s largest, have combined capex budgets of $300 billion now—all for building out generative AI data centers.

And they need 24/7 uninterrupted power, which isn’t reliably or physically possible from wind and solar.

“Now [tech companies] are … potentially your biggest partners—your biggest customers—because they need electricity,” he said.

The demand for electrons from natural gas-fired powergen alone is estimated to be some 10 Bcf/d or more, according to securities analysts’ estimates.

“An AI data center is not a data center that is processing a healthcare claim or a shopping invoice. An AI data center is manufacturing. That's the next generation: They’re manufacturing intelligence.”

The kilowatts needed—from natural gas, renewables, nuclear and other sources—are in a category of their own, he added.

“A kilowatt of electricity that goes into heating your dinner is very different than a kilowatt that goes into creating intelligence.”

Tech companies’ power demand was insignificant during the past 50 years.

In Burgum’s 30 years in the industry, “we never took more than 1% of the nation's electricity. No one even knew that we were even out there.

“But now, this is real demand.”

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‘AI arms race’

And there is an extra-expedited urgency to coming up with grid-expansion and electrons: It’s a matter of national security.

“It matters for winning this AI arms race because intelligence manufacturing will change every job and every company and every industry,” Burgum said.

In addition to a nuclear Iran and other existential threats, the nation faces the risk of “losing the AI arms race to China.”

“And the only way we win the AI arms race against China is that we have electricity,” he said.

China has tons of coal and “they're building 30 nuclear stations right now,” as well as installing more hydro-power plants.

“And they're not getting an [environmental-impact statement] before they dam up a river and move a city,” he said.

“So they're moving at a speed that would suggest that we're in a serious cyber war with them, and we have to adopt some of that same speed.”

It’s “mission critical.”

‘Not doing reports’

But the tech industry that has typically moved at electron speed is encountering federal and other bureaucracies that don’t.

“We've created a very distorted market for electricity in this country,” Burgum said.

He chairs the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) formed by President Trump with Energy Secretary Chris Wright as vice chair.

The job: cutting red tape that has slowed development of U.S. energy resources.

“We're trying to get regulations out of the way. We're trying to let innovation flourish,” Burgum said.

Part of that is “not doing reports. We're not doing studies,” he said.

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Projects that currently take 10 years should be done in two or four. The NEDC will remove overlaps in approval processes, remove overreach “and identify what else we can just get rid of in the federal government.”

And quickly: Trump’s executive order that formed the NEDC requires 15-day turnarounds on tasks. “These aren't like six-month and 12-month studies. These are 15 and 30 days.”

The Biden administration brought “a full-on attack against fossil fuels,” he added. “That’s just a fact. … And our job is to unwind that.”

The outcome will ultimately be pro-environment rather than against, he said.

“If you care about the environment, then you would want to have every drop and every electron produced in the United States.

“We do it cleaner, safer, smarter than anyone.”

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