Oct 2, 2026 · 45 min · 10 segments
Ray Conley, founder and CEO of Creekstone Energy, breaks down why the AI era is becoming a land rush for power, fiber, and the physical footprint needed to train frontier models. Conley explains why…
Ray ConleyGuestMarty CarpenterHostI want to talk more about the project, but I think it's something that we tend to gloss over a little bit in the overall AI slash even data center discussion.
And that is like, why is it important for America to win? And I think some people get it, and they go, yeah, it's important we win.
I wonder just if you, from your perspective, would say, this is essentially, from what I've read, a two-horse race.
Why is it important that we beat China in this race? And how do things change if we don't?
If we look at a few different levels of how civilizations compete, one, you can look at the simple one on a military basis.
There's other ways to compete as economically, which is maybe a little better for everyone because you're getting better outcomes.
So each of those are kind of distinct ways that civilizations compete with each other.
On the military side, we reached a balance of power when nuclear came into play with the Cold War, with the mutually assured destruction philosophy.
actually the advent of nuclear weapons has systematically reduced the risk of global conflict, not increased it, because the consequences are so dire they just don't do it anymore.
Whereas before it was a lot easier to wage war because the consequences weren't as starkly obvious to the people making those decisions.
AI has the ability to maybe move us in a direction that could reduce that risk even further as folks realize the consequences of it.
So even though there's a lot of fear, I kind of make the analogy to nuclear when we think about escalation of force and the consequence and how quick it happens.
As Albert Einstein said, I don't know what the next war will be fought with, but the one after that will be fought with sticks and stones.
And so that to me is the first level of you don't want to be behind when you get down to hard force, and AI is fundamental to that.
From a commerce point of view, on the other hand, most of economic growth and GDP growth is a function of how many people you have, which China has a massive advantage, and How much capital do you have? In which case, we have a massive advantage.
It's a force multiplier on the number of people you have, and it's also a massive risk mitigant on the capital side to allow your capital to be more efficient.
So those two things combined, whoever's got the best AI is going to have by far the most powerful economy in the world.
I want to talk more about the project, but I think it's something that we tend to gloss over a little bit in the overall AI slash even data center discussion.
And that is like, why is it important for America to win? And I think some people get it, and they go, yeah, it's important we win.
I wonder just if you, from your perspective, would say, this is essentially, from what I've read, a two-horse race.
Why is it important that we beat China in this race? And how do things change if we don't?
If we look at a few different levels of how civilizations compete, one, you can look at the simple one on a military basis.
There's other ways to compete as economically, which is maybe a little better for everyone because you're getting better outcomes.
So each of those are kind of distinct ways that civilizations compete with each other.
On the military side, we reached a balance of power when nuclear came into play with the Cold War, with the mutually assured destruction philosophy.
actually the advent of nuclear weapons has systematically reduced the risk of global conflict, not increased it, because the consequences are so dire they just don't do it anymore.
Whereas before it was a lot easier to wage war because the consequences weren't as starkly obvious to the people making those decisions.
AI has the ability to maybe move us in a direction that could reduce that risk even further as folks realize the consequences of it.
So even though there's a lot of fear, I kind of make the analogy to nuclear when we think about escalation of force and the consequence and how quick it happens.
As Albert Einstein said, I don't know what the next war will be fought with, but the one after that will be fought with sticks and stones.
And so that to me is the first level of you don't want to be behind when you get down to hard force, and AI is fundamental to that.
From a commerce point of view, on the other hand, most of economic growth and GDP growth is a function of how many people you have, which China has a massive advantage, and How much capital do you have? In which case, we have a massive advantage.
It's a force multiplier on the number of people you have, and it's also a massive risk mitigant on the capital side to allow your capital to be more efficient.
So those two things combined, whoever's got the best AI is going to have by far the most powerful economy in the world.
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