The Race Is On To Control AI | Episode 274: Afonso Salema & Sam Winter-Levy

More than 80% of the world’s advanced AI compute is concentrated in the US and China. For Europe and other middle powers, the question may no longer be how to win the AI race, but how to avoid becoming dangerously dependent on those that do. This week on Cleaning Up, James Cameron, Chair of Cleaning Up’s Editorial Council, takes over as guest host. He speaks with Sam Winter-Levy, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Afonso Salema, CEO of Exus Digital and founder of TerraByte Data Centers, about how compute is becoming a strategic resource. They explore how access to power and the grid is shaping where billions of dollars of AI infrastructure gets built, and how data centres could become a source of geopolitical leverage. They also discuss the security and public backlash facing this critical infrastructure, and whether AI’s enormous appetite for electricity could ultimately accelerate the clean energy transition. Topics covered in this episode: - Compute as a strategic resource - The US-China race for AI - Why Europe is falling behind - AI’s rapidly growing electricity demand - Where the world builds data centres - Protecting data centres from attack - Weaponising chips and AI access - The political backlash against data centres - Can AI accelerate clean energy? Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is proud to be supported by its Leadership Circle. The members are Actis, Alcazar Energy, Arup, Climate Imperative Foundation, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Cygnum Capital, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP, Eurelectric, KKR, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, Schneider Electric, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit cleaningup.live. Links: - Afonso Salema’s bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afonso-salema-336320/ - Sam Winter-Levy’s bio: https://carnegieendowment.org/people/sam-winter-levy - James Cameron’s bio: https://www.james-cameron.co.uk/bio - Cleaning Up 235. Inside Start Campus, Europe’s largest data centre: https://youtu.be/juAyLAUmU3w - James Cameron on Cleaning Up in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn7GKiW5E4k - James Cameron on Cleaning Up in 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPPjAbSxl5c - Subscribe to our newsletter: https://cleaninguppod.substack.com/ - The Stanford 2026 AI index: https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report - Edelman Trust in AI poll: https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer/report-tech-sector Acronyms: - AWS: Amazon Web Services - NIMBY: "Not In My Back Yard" Chapters: - 00:00 Introduction - 02:02 AI, security, geopolitics - 05:01 Compute as power - 11:34 The global AI race - 14:07 Building data centres - 18:02 Defending critical infrastructure - 23:53 Who pays for security? - 29:24 Designing for resilience - 32:48 Weaponising AI access - 40:02 Data centre backlash - 49:56 The balance of power - 54:09 Can Europe catch up? - 59:43 AI and clean energy - 01:04:01 Outro