Transcript was automatically generated.

Frank Curzio 00:00

Good evening, Khadija Mustafa. Thank you so much for joining us on “Wall Street Unplugged.”

Khadija Mustafa 00:05

Thank you for having me. Very excited.

Frank Curzio 00:07

So, you have worked for Microsoft for 23 years, within cloud infrastructure, AI data centers, hyperscales all around the world.

Frank Curzio 00:15

I looked at the profile: it says “helping build strategies for large corporations, including global sales, business development, alliance partner channel, ecosystems development, operations across numerous market verticals, directly generating and influencing multi-billion dollars in software services hardware revenue.” However, that’s vague.

Frank Curzio 00:33

So I did a little digging, and just to bring everyone involved here, to me that doesn’t tell a full story. Because you headed go-to-market for AI for autonomous systems at Microsoft, played a key role in one of Microsoft’s largest acquisitions, which was Skype. You built the health business across the Middle East and Africa, drove business with the world’s top hardware manufacturers, led commercial supply chain for Microsoft Surface devices,

Frank Curzio 00:54

had numerous awards, right, been recognized for consistent excellence at Microsoft, received seven awards, including four Gold Star distinctions. And now you recently joined the advisory board for a small power company called Vivo Power. More on that later, but how was the career there?

Khadija Mustafa 01:13

It’s been an interesting journey, indeed.

Frank Curzio 01:15

Yeah. So I want to put all that in perspective because we’re going to get into AI and the power story. Before that, I’d love to hear how it is to work at someplace like Microsoft, where I think you were there, maybe a little bit later in 2002 to 2013, but you see growth kind of stagnant, and all of a sudden cloud becomes a growth model, explodes for you guys, massive transition, you know, stock does well and takes off.

Frank Curzio 01:37

What was it like to be part of Microsoft then? Did you see similar things, or are you seeing it now, and you’re not there anymore, where that transition into AI is providing that excitement? But that whole transition, getting into a new trend must be exciting, especially working for a big company like that.

Khadija Mustafa 01:52

Yeah, very much so. You know, being there for so long, it was interesting because I had a front-row seat to a lot of, call it, revolutions or developments or innovations. And it was interesting because being able to sort of see the roller coaster ride of how things emerge and then where they landed. And it was always, I mean,

Khadija Mustafa 02:11

obviously being at Microsoft, a lot of it had to do with where is Microsoft in that mix. So if you think about that whole journey that included things like the phone, the internet itself, it’s definitely been interesting. My last five years at Microsoft is really where the focus, where I spent a lot of time developing some of our AI businesses took place.

Khadija Mustafa 02:31

And I will say that it’s similar in the sense that when you’re at a big company, you get a very interesting vantage point that’s global, and especially from a company that’s building the software, right? So it’s a particular vantage point that gives you a very good cross-section. However, I will say that what we’re seeing happening in the industry,

Khadija Mustafa 02:52

it just feels very unprecedented in many ways. Because the pace and speed at which things are developing, that’s exponential.

Frank Curzio 03:00

Let’s talk about speed and pace, because we’re in a market where, you know, I study the power and the models behind it, and I feel like every model that I see has it wrong when it comes to the demand that we need to see. It’s more like they’re projecting, I believe, modeling for 80 to 100 gigawatts of power. I see more 200 when accounting for agentic AI,

Frank Curzio 03:20

robotics, newer chips coming to the market. So we have this market where AI is not slowing down the pace we see it. Agentic AI now is just on the forefront. And then you need the power, but yet we’re seeing so many of this power being delayed. What are you hearing out there? Someone talks to hyperscalers that the power, because should we be worried about this?

Frank Curzio 03:39

Because I’m worried that we’re not going to have enough power, and I don’t know where we’re going to get it from. I know we have new technologies there, but I like for someone inside that talks to so many countries internationally and hyperscalers, what are you hearing out there?

Khadija Mustafa 03:52

Well, I mean, look, you asked a very specific question. You said, should I be worried? I think what we’re seeing is we’re seeing a voracious appetite as it relates to the hyperscalers and the frontier model companies. And a lot of it has to do with the fact, like, just if you think about 18 months ago, right, a lot of the bottleneck was at GPUs.

Khadija Mustafa 04:11

It was on the specific compute side. And then we saw that change. So what we’re really seeing is we’re seeing the concern. I don’t want to call it just concerns because it’s opportunity, right? We’re seeing opportunity and the bottleneck and in some ways concerns moving upstream.

Khadija Mustafa 04:26

Because, you know, as much as AI is a software revolution, it’s as much about it being an infrastructure play as well. So the limitations are coming from physicality, and the software is essentially advancing at warped, well, not warped,

Khadija Mustafa 04:44

but at internet speed, but the infrastructure is advancing at utility speed. And that tension is what’s coming to play. So what that’s basically doing is it’s creating more opportunities for companies, for countries as well, right, in terms of where are they harnessing that capability.

Khadija Mustafa 05:04

So all of a sudden, like, you know, as you meant, I think you were going to say something.

Frank Curzio 05:09

No, no, no, no. Go ahead. Go ahead. I’m listening. I’m fascinated. Go ahead. Keep going.

Khadija Mustafa 05:14

So all of a sudden you see this race that’s moving upstream, and you’re seeing the economics change because the opportunity lies not just in obviously AI applications, which is huge, but all of that is powering the back end, what I would call the less sexy end.

Khadija Mustafa 05:29

And if you sort of play out that philosophy, that sort of bottleneck or where the rubber meets the road is moving further upstream, even in terms of how we harness energy. So I think all in all, the opportunity landscape is getting bigger.

Khadija Mustafa 05:48

The players that are recognizing where some of the bottlenecks and the roadblocks are happening, they’re able to take advantage of it in a very unique way. And to some degree, yes, that’s going to absolutely put pressure in terms of, you know, kind of how the race is playing out when it comes to applications, when it comes to models. But don’t forget,

Khadija Mustafa 06:07

there’s a lot of innovation happening in deep tech. So there could be innovations that are coming out because you’ll look at more efficient systems of cooling. You’ll look at chips that have more efficiencies. You might start looking at architectures that are able to do more with sort of, you know, less energy.

Frank Curzio 06:26

And I love that you said that, like, opportunity, because we just talked, you know, we just said America’s data center, like, you know, Wall Street Journal billed us falling way behind schedule. And then you said, you know, there is opportunity instead of being worried that there’s different opportunities. And I don’t know if it’s opportunity, but what you’re seeing, I think, is right in your wheelhouse is the sovereign nations and the energy is a lot cheaper in some of these places.

Frank Curzio 06:47

Could you talk about that and what you’re hearing? Because that’s an incredible story. And I feel like someone’s been in the AI trend for a very long time. It’s undertold, right? It’s not being told where I feel like it’s kind of under the radar when it comes to sovereign nations, AI, and the demand, and to keep their data safe and everything, and throw in, you know, all the infrastructure. I feel like that’s a trend within this trend that’s still kind of in incipitacy, but I don’t know if I’d be saying that right.

Khadija Mustafa 07:09

I think very well said. It is a trend within the trend. You know, sovereignty, it’s interesting because while I was in the G42 time sort of, at that moment, sovereignty was very, very important because nations, especially when you think about the Middle East, they started the push to diversify their economies off of oil.

Khadija Mustafa 07:28

So what you’re seeing happening in the UAE, Saudi, et cetera. And obviously, when you start talking about nations, you’re talking about critical workloads, regulated industries, financial services, healthcare, defense. And nations starting to ask questions that, wait a minute, where are we going to put all of this information? And how should we be thinking about sovereignty? A lot of the sovereignty talk,

Khadija Mustafa 07:49

sovereign AI talk has been around data residency and, you know, when information goes out of the country and then, you know, it comes back in, how should we think about it? But especially with the current geopolitics, sovereign AI is much more about the fact that AI infrastructure has become a critical national asset, much like, you know, think about dams and sources of water.

Khadija Mustafa 08:10

And nations that weren’t thinking about it before, and when I mean before, I’m just talking about the last 12 months, because if you look at what’s happening, you know, what we’re seeing playing out globally, a lot of nations that weren’t thinking about having their own infrastructure are suddenly questioning that, wait a minute, the intelligence that we’re going to rely on in our country is coming from friendly nations.

Khadija Mustafa 08:30

It’s coming from whom? What’s the source of it? You know, where do you source the infrastructure that’s building it? Who’s owning the data centers? What happens if access gets impacted, as we’ve seen, you know, recently, and it’s not going to stop? It can happen intentionally. It can happen as a result of a hurricane as well.

Khadija Mustafa 08:50

So all of a sudden, the space that before was, I don’t want to say optional, but not every country can partake in this race, right?

Khadija Mustafa 08:57

Because it requires a lot of, it requires access to energy, it requires capital, it requires access to supply chains, whether it’s critical, you know, GPUs or whether it’s being able to access manufacturing equipment that you need to build this stuff out, not to mention talent. So what’s happening right now in this space is a couple of things.

Khadija Mustafa 09:17

Number one, you’re seeing nations emerge and that will take a front-row seat because of their geographic benefits, right? So if you’re close to access, if you are close to sources of power, right, clean energy especially. So if you think about Canada, you think about the Nordics, and, you know,

Khadija Mustafa 09:36

places in emerging markets, I mean, Kenya has got geothermal, Kyrgyzstan’s got solar, I mean, Kazakhstan, you name sort of the list goes on and on. That’s one play. The second one is you’re going to find nations that are thinking about how they’re going to integrate that technology by reinventing themselves and not simply just add layers of AI on.

Khadija Mustafa 09:57

So when you see what’s happening in the UAE and Saudi, where they’re really bringing the power of capital and attracting talent together with national ecosystems and policy and decision-making that is actually supporting becoming AI-native countries, you’re going to see a lot of advancements there. So we’re seeing this shifting landscape based on how sources,

Khadija Mustafa 10:19

components of AI infrastructure are being built, as well as how the power of AI is going to be incorporated. And you will have, I don’t want to say haves and have-nots, but you will find a very different set of companies that are actually advanced in that race.

Frank Curzio 10:35

Yeah, I’m loving this. I’m like a kid in a candy store right now because I’m going to have so many follow-ups. So when you look at sovereign nations, we could talk about so many different areas. You mentioned certain places. Is there other areas? I mean, I would think, you know, Asia, Africa, East Africa, just places that you’re hearing from that, you know, of course you’re dialed into all this,

Frank Curzio 10:53

that they’re pressing this and saying, okay, hey, you know, we really need this now. How are we going to get our power needs? How are we going to get them? Because it seems like this, like you said, this trend within a trend that’s just starting. And what I’m reading now, what I’m hearing from my sources, and, you know, I’ve been in the industry for 30 years and built up some good contacts is, you know, they’re hearing that the Microsofts,

Frank Curzio 11:12

the big hyperscalers, the Amazons, they are pushing into places like Nordic and stuff. So what are you hearing? Is there more specific industries or places like Southeast Asia or East Africa or any place like that that you’re hearing the most out of that they need this demand?

Khadija Mustafa 11:30

Listen, the demand is going to be, it’s going to be all over because if you think about it, right, you have to think about latency. If you think about the power sources, in some cases, I mean, of course, you’re going to find data centers that are just connecting to the grid, but there’s a lot of talk about colocating data centers.

Khadija Mustafa 11:49

Hyperscalers, absolutely, because think about it, and frontier model companies, their businesses are global. So the closer they can get to the markets. Now, one way, because, you know, one way I think about it is population dynamics. If you think about over the next 20 to 30 years, majority of the world population is going to be in Africa. It’s going to be broader Middle East. It’s going to be South Asia and Southeast Asia, right?

Khadija Mustafa 12:09

So that is really where the dynamics are shifting. And when you think about how we consume technology and when you think about the demand coming from individuals, all of a sudden that shift is going to start taking place and infrastructure needs to be built out to support. Not to mention these economies want their independence. They want to become sources of innovation,

Khadija Mustafa 12:28

not simply to access that intelligence layer by building the data centers, but they want to, I mean, you’ve got populations. Over 60% of the population of many of the countries in this region are going to be, I mean, they’re young. They’re going to be well below the age of 25. So you can put them, you know,

Khadija Mustafa 12:47

number one, they’re going to be innovative themselves, but you’ve got these young minds that are going to be curious, that are going to be taking this sort of infrastructure intelligence that’s being built, and they’re going to start innovating on top of that. So they’re going to need compute close to them as well. Because on the one hand, we talk about training. On the other hand, we talk about inference as well, right? So you’re going to see,

Khadija Mustafa 13:06

I mean, even right now, you’re seeing kind of slow development, slow, but, you know, sort of getting compute closer to urban centers, closer to where the action is. Not to mention, we didn’t even talk about physical AI, right? So you mentioned robotics in the very beginning.

Khadija Mustafa 13:27

That revolution is yet to take place. We’re beginning to see it, but it’s not at scale. So if you start thinking about a world where humanoids will literally start, you know, occupying our factories and our homes, et cetera, now you’re talking about being able to have access to compute that’s, you know, call it short range, for the lack of a better word.

Khadija Mustafa 13:49

So there’s going to be an emergence of infrastructure that’s going to support a variety of different scenarios, or there’s going to be a need for that.

Frank Curzio 13:57

So what are some of the top questions that you hear right now, even from, if, you know, you say you work with large-scale companies, hyperscalers, is that their biggest needs, is that their biggest concern is like, hey, how do we get power or, you know, the sovereign nation thing? I mean, maybe you covered it, right? I’m just curious if someone that’s in that circle. I wonder what their needs are because the spending is just going up.

Frank Curzio 14:19

We’ve seen spending, it’s going to, just for the top five, I think it’s going to be closing in on $700 billion. I mean, it’s like three times, I feel like that’s three times the cancer treatment market, right? People don’t understand how much money that is. And just to put that in perspective, in January 2025, they said that spending, which exploded higher, would be $250 billion, right?

Frank Curzio 14:37

So, you know, now we’re at $700 billion and it keeps spending and spending and spending. It seems like, yes, it’s going to data centers, yes, it’s going to power. Is there anything else that they’re saying? Is it supply chain or something that maybe we covered already that, you know, that the next generation of concerns that you’re hearing about?

Khadija Mustafa 14:53

Yeah, I mean, look, right now, I think what’s happening is the demand is just outstripping supply. And if I double-click on the supply, because sometimes it sounds like it’s just data centers. I mean, if you think about data centers as a large factory, that’s manufacturing intelligence, right?

Khadija Mustafa 15:10

I mean, very simplistically, it’s the mechanism by which power is getting converted into compute. So when that happens, power is a very, very critical part of it. But as I mentioned earlier, there’s a whole ecosystem of things that happen. It’s not simply connecting it to power. It’s the whole, I mean,

Khadija Mustafa 15:28

there’s an industrial menu, there’s an industrial supply chain of stuff that you need to make. So, you know, from the transmission to the substations, I mean, there’s a lot of detail and stuff. And the world we’re living in right now, we’ve got supply chain constraints as well. And when you’ve got a ton of demand and relatively little supply, because I talked about it,

Khadija Mustafa 15:48

it’s the difference between internet speed and utility speed.

Frank Curzio 15:51

Yeah.

Khadija Mustafa 15:52

I mean, it’s almost like a generation divide, right? So if you were to think of humans and you’re talking about sort of a certain age group and then the young, they think very differently. It’s the same thing. We’re living in an AI era where we want everything in split seconds. But to build that infrastructure, it’s like bringing on a utility. I mean, my God, connecting, this is a world that has been developing for decades prior.

Khadija Mustafa 16:13

And what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to bring the two together. So I mentioned labor shortages, right? I mean, you need engineers. So just, I mean, we haven’t even started because we just, we talked about it, right? There’s going to be a demand in the emerging markets. Even within the developed countries, there’s so much demand. Where are you going to get the talent from, right? The physical, the industrial talent, the engineers, the ones that are actually working on the systems.

Khadija Mustafa 16:36

Not to mention where are you going to get the components from? What’s going to happen to the price points of those components because it’s outstripping supply? I mean, power is like, again, further upstream. And then the ability to move that power as well in the scenarios I talked about, right? Because you’re going to start getting closer to where power is being consumed is going to start getting.

Khadija Mustafa 16:56

So I think what we will start seeing as time progresses is we’re going to see the bottlenecks go further upstream and get a little bit wider. But at the same time, I don’t want to make it sound like, oh my God, it’s all bottleneck, bottleneck. What’s going to end up happening is there’s going to be innovations. So if you think right now, right, frontier models take months to be released,

Khadija Mustafa 17:16

I don’t know, weeks, depending on which company we’re talking about and what, but then enabling that infrastructure takes years potentially. So the places where people are ready to execute, right?

Khadija Mustafa 17:30

So, you know, where land is connected to power or where someone’s already built a data center or where someone already is repurposing environments that were used for other things, right? So you see a lot of, you know, people are changing sort of crypto mining operations into data centers.

Frank Curzio 17:48

Huge, yeah.

Khadija Mustafa 17:50

So I think what’s going to happen is it is going to be a cascaded effect. So those that can get to it fast to feed the demand will benefit, but then there’s a whole lineup, right? You still have to get into line. I mean, you might say the first 20 people, wow, this is great, but then start looking at the next 20.

Khadija Mustafa 18:08

So getting into line on the things that are emerging start. Or not getting, but meaning preparing for that, I think is where people who are going to have line of sight and are working either in terms of accessing innovation, building that innovation, or having line of sight to that,

Khadija Mustafa 18:26

I think those are the ones that are going to start getting ahead. And the same applies for nations. Because you don’t suddenly decide that you’re going to start hosting AI infrastructure, right? There’s a ton of work that needs to happen. I mean, if you think about, for example, lots of excitement on, you know, the kind of, you know, small modular nuclear reactors,

Khadija Mustafa 18:48

lots of promise, but right now it’s not happening at scale. And then you’ve got nations that have access to nuclear energy, right? So nuclear energy is not just about defensive or offensive purposes. It is to actually fuel this energy race. So countries have to get ahead of the curve to start getting ready to tap into that.

Khadija Mustafa 19:08

It just doesn’t happen overnight. So there’s a lot of stuff that’s happening in the layers that we don’t always hear about or see.

Frank Curzio 19:16

Yeah, just so many opportunities. There’s a difference between blue energy, fuel cells, scalable technology, and SMR is not scalable yet, but there’s a lot of hope for it with all of the, I mean, these companies are trading at multi-billion dollar valuations with a lot of promise, and it will be interesting to see how, if, you know, they were able to fill those promises. But as someone who’s been in technology as long as you have,

Frank Curzio 19:35

most of your whole life, your whole career, have you ever seen anything like this with AI? I mean, was it, you know, again, I brought up early with cloud, and that transition was remarkable, right? Where, you know, you had Amazon, you had Microsoft, and this explosion. Have you ever seen anything quite like this in your career? Is this really different this time?

Khadija Mustafa 19:54

You know, it feels different. I mean, I remember with the internet boom, things were changing so drastically in the late ’90s, but maybe, I mean, think about it, right? We live in a social media age. So you didn’t really get information at your fingertips. You had to go kind of search for it. You were still relying on newspapers. Sure, you started getting online news.

Khadija Mustafa 20:12

We live in an era right now that everything is in our face. So maybe if we had social media back in the late ’90s, things would feel like they were moving really fast too. But I just think if you look at the laws of physics right now, I mean, it is exponential. So it just feels, I mean, you wake up after 12 hours and there’s, I don’t know, hundreds of more AI tools out there.

Khadija Mustafa 20:32

Even if you’re an expert in that field, you can’t keep track. You know, and the question is, do you really want to even keep track of that?

Khadija Mustafa 20:38

But it does feel like this is unprecedented. And also, its impact on humanity. I think that’s an important thing, right? Because we.

Frank Curzio 20:52

Go ahead.

Khadija Mustafa 20:55

Like, for example, you know, a friend has written a book, Parenting AI, Yukai, and he talks about how we’re going to be the last generation of humans training AIs because it’s going to be AIs training AIs. So, you know, when you think about the internet revolution, you know, almost what, two and a half, three decades ago, it wasn’t exactly that.

Khadija Mustafa 21:15

We weren’t sort of removing ourselves. I mean, we may have been one step removed, but now we’re getting more than one step removed.

Khadija Mustafa 21:22

So I think the pace of innovation and what it means for us in terms of taking charge of our own destinies is happening so fast that one can’t, I think mentally it’s hard to almost keep track of it. So I think that is what feels very unprecedented because we’re asking questions about where do humans fit in an AI world?

Khadija Mustafa 21:44

I don’t think we ever asked that question about where do humans fit in an internet world or a cloud world.

Frank Curzio 21:50

Yeah. And this is, I mean, following trends from my career, it’s what I love to do and just, you know, the boom and bust and being wrong on some of them and always trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t work. I’ve never seen something like this where you can’t see the end, where you see the scalability with phones. Okay, everybody’s going to own a phone. You have a market, right? You could scale total addressable market.

Frank Curzio 22:08

I just feel you can’t see the end of this of how big this could be. Like even, you know, again, we just didn’t do genetics, we’re going to be into robotics. We’re talking about SpaceX with this massive mode of, you know, data centers in space and who knows where that’s going to go. I just feel like, you know, I think Mark Zuckerberg said it best where you got to invest in this because you don’t know how big it’s going to be yet.

Frank Curzio 22:26

And not to be able to see that is kind of, I don’t know if crazy is the right word, but, you know, it’s very interesting. I feel the same way. It does feel, it definitely does feel different since I’ve been doing this a long time. That’s why I wanted to ask your opinion on that. So it is interesting.

Khadija Mustafa 22:40

The beauty of it is nobody’s got a crystal ball, right? Your crystal ball and my crystal ball. So, you know, we can predict, we can analyze, we can look at things. You can come from a vantage point of whatever experience, et cetera, you have. But I think it’s the fact that the biggest innovation can literally come out of nowhere and the least expected.

Frank Curzio 22:59

Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. Does, personally for you, do you have fears around AI where, you know, to the capabilities where it’s going to be fully autonomous? I mean, you talked about, you know, hey, AI, trading AI, really you could, you know, not getting as many people to work for us. But outside of that, you know, when my mind wanders,

Frank Curzio 23:18

it is pretty scary, especially when it comes to defense and everything. Is there anything you hear in certain circles, you hear people from OpenAI that left that were like, hey, you know, we’re really nervous about this and, you know, start different companies. Do you have any fears around that? Are they overblown? I mean, is it good to be talking about this? This way we could address it and not just go in blindly and not worry about anything? Because it seems the more autonomous this gets, it seems like the more risk there could be.

Khadija Mustafa 23:42

Yeah, no, absolutely. I’m going to answer your question slightly indirectly. So my last five years at Microsoft, we were working actually on what is today called physical AI, right? So AI for physical systems. So think atoms, not bits. What I mean by that is using AI as software that you don’t see that’s, you know,

Khadija Mustafa 24:01

whether it’s Gen AI or it’s algorithmic hedge fund trading, you’re not physically seeing it and it’s one thing. But using AI in physical systems, so whether it’s manufacturing plants, robotics, you know, drones, things that you can actually see and control that dictate so much of our lives. We started working on that early. And, you know, it was complicated.

Khadija Mustafa 24:21

Some of the other advancements weren’t there that have now brought it into a situation where it’s going to take off very differently, right? Now, that was a period of time. When we were looking at the space, you were looking at the capabilities that made things better, right? Because there was a science to a lot of what’s happening.

Khadija Mustafa 24:41

So if you think about physical AI right now and using AI in manufacturing systems, what we don’t realize is there’s a lot of expertise that is changing hands. You’ve got these machine operators, et cetera, people who were there with their knowledge for decades. Suddenly they leave and all that knowledge goes away. So for me, a lot of it has been you’re able to actually use this powerful technology to do things.

Khadija Mustafa 25:02

Yes, a lot of it is automation, but to make things happen that are going to better society. But like everything, there is the pros and cons, right? There is the positive side and there’s, you know, the yin-yang to everything. I tend to focus less on the fears, not because I don’t believe the fear, not because I’m being naive,

Khadija Mustafa 25:22

but because you can spend your time going down doomsday, right? So it’s like scrolling down a very negative path, or which you can look at the possibilities and start putting your energy around that and having the conversations, like you said, right? So what’s the governance going to look like? How powerful do we want these systems to get?

Khadija Mustafa 25:42

What does this mean for society?

Khadija Mustafa 25:44

If jobs are going to go away in such a severe way, are we talking about universal high income in those conversations, right? What’s the role of government? What’s the role of private enterprise? What’s the role of citizens? What’s the role of families in this mix, right? What are you educating your kids to do? How should you get trained?

Khadija Mustafa 26:03

So I think that’s a long-winded way of saying that we’re heading down. There’s an opportunity to build the kind of a world we see. And I think if more people put their energy and effort and use the powerful tools towards doing that, then you’re going to get more balance.

Khadija Mustafa 26:22

If everyone just gets concerned, you know, you become the deer in headlights, you just freeze and you do nothing. And I can guarantee you the folks who are going to use this for purposes that might not be great, whether it’s state actors or individuals, they’re not thinking about the negativity. They’re just thinking, wow. They’re thinking of it as the possibilities from their perspective.

Khadija Mustafa 26:41

So I just sort of feel I tend to spend more of my time, like, I mean, let’s just talk about, since we’re talking about AI infrastructure, right? You know, there’s a lot of community backlash in the US, especially around this, and for very valid reasons. I mean, I completely understand the concern, but at the same time, the concern needs to be around talk of,

Khadija Mustafa 27:01

listen, how are we giving back to communities and society if, you know, infrastructures are being built? They should be demanding that. I mean, as communities and as citizens, we should be demanding that. How do you harness and use more clean energy, right? How do you use this as a way to create a stream of jobs or, you know, what have you for those communities?

Khadija Mustafa 27:21

So I would put less, I would put more time focused on that than on simply saying we don’t want to have it because by not actually having the infrastructure, right, you’re actually sort of separating yourself from the future. It’s like saying, well, you know, I don’t want to learn about technology. I don’t want to learn how to code in like 10 years ago because I don’t want this new technology.

Khadija Mustafa 27:43

I’m just going to write in paper and pen. So you will indirectly limit your own growth. That’s how I see it.

Frank Curzio 27:50

Yeah, no, it’s well said, well said. Now, we met because I know Kevin Chenfre is the co-founder and executive chairman for Vivo Power, and he brought you on the advisory board. And he actually said, he’s like, listen, you know, he knows how much I love this and I’m very particular in the companies that, you know, I’ll put my newsletter and stuff and, you know, what he’s doing is a fantastic job.

Frank Curzio 28:10

And he was right. I really loved the interview. So someone who could really, coming from Microsoft, go anywhere you want. I know you could probably do other things as well. You’re not like just limited to Vivo. What attracted you to Vivo? Because I don’t want to be attracted to me, but as a person that can go any place with your experience, as I took about, it felt like 15 minutes going all through everything that you’ve done in athletes and everything.

Frank Curzio 28:30

What attracted you to Vivo so much that you wanted to work with them, especially on the advisory board?

Khadija Mustafa 28:37

You know, they’re working at sort of the bottleneck we’ve been talking about. Sort of energized, powered land and going upstream. They’ve really recognized that space. They have the relationships to make a lot of that real because, as I mentioned, AI infrastructure is a strategic national asset.

Khadija Mustafa 28:56

So they’re operating at the highest levels in some of these countries, governments, monarchies. So being able to have access to the bottlenecks that is going to make this intelligence layer ubiquitous and scalable across the world. They have the thesis of sovereign AI, which I think is so important. You know, US is a continent.

Khadija Mustafa 29:15

So our sovereignty is focused on one country. We tend to forget that every other country overseas needs to think about this space. So they’re really focused on that sweet spot that I think is going to be incredibly important and emerging.

Khadija Mustafa 29:30

And, you know, and then they already have existing pipelines in place in some of the countries we’re talking about. Not to mention being a B Corp, they’re focused on giving back to the communities. And that’s very much part of their thesis, which really personally attracted me and a very strong team.

Frank Curzio 29:49

No, that’s great to hear. It’s great to hear. Well, he was right. I really enjoyed this conversation. I mean, as a stock analyst and my job is to find ideas, for me, my head’s spinning right now. And you’re right, just the opportunity, the bottlenecks. We’ve done that with a few of the Bitcoin miners where we saw the transition and able to get in early.

Frank Curzio 30:04

And just my conversation with you, not only educate me, but it just leads me in a direction to how many different industries you want to go to try to find those companies that are going to help out with those bottlenecks. Because that’s the best opportunity to really make a lot of money in the market. So I just want to say thank you so much. I know how busy you are for joining and I really appreciate just learning from you and talking to you.

Frank Curzio 30:22

And I know my audience will as well. So I really appreciate it.

Khadija Mustafa 30:25

Thanks so much for having me, Frank. Pleasure.

Announcer 30:27

Wall Street Unplugged is produced by Curzio Research, one of the most respected financial media companies in the industry. The information presented on Wall Street Unplugged is the opinion of its host and guests. You should not base your investment decisions solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money, and your responsibility.