Exclusive: Energy and tech titans to talk AI in closed-door meeting
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A who's who of top execs from oil majors, tech and power giants, and financial heavyweights will gather in private today in D.C. to discuss meeting AI's energy needs.
Why it matters: It shows how the topic is central to C-suites as hyperscalers seek energy — whether it's gas, nuclear or renewables — to supply data centers.
- Top officials with Exxon, OpenAI, BP, Constellation Energy, Carlyle and many more are slated to attend.
Driving the news: Two UAE companies are convening the ENACT ("energy and action") summit alongside the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank.
- One is XRG, a large energy investor launched in late 2024 and wholly owned by UAE state oil and gas giant ADNOC. The other is UAE-based AI and tech investor MGX.
- ADNOC CEO Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who's also UAE minister of industry and advanced tech, will host, and DOE head Chris Wright is expected to attend.
- It's aimed at bringing together people across the AI value chain.
State of play: Axios exclusively learned details about the meeting, which was first broadly announced early this month. According to organizers, expected attendees include...
- Exxon CEO Darren Woods, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss, and Occidental boss Vicki Hollub.
- Tech execs like OpenAI global affairs head Chris Lehane and Crusoe co-founder and CEO Chase Lochmiller.
- Power execs including Constellation Energy CEO Joseph Dominguez, Emirates Nuclear Energy Co. CEO Mohamed Al Hammadi, AES CEO Andres Gluski, and Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, head of UAE renewables heavyweight Masdar.
- Investors such as Cantor Fitzgerald chairman Brandon Lutnick, Engine No. 1 founder Chris James and Carlyle chairman of energy Marcel van Poecke.
- Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who's seeking investment in a major gas pipeline and LNG project in his state.
The intrigue: The meeting will cover both the immediate energy needs to 2030 but also longer-term decision-making and opportunities, organizers say.
- The idea is not just talking shop, but producing practical takeaways, with a report expected to follow soon afterward.
- This session will focus heavily on the U.S., which XRG has identified as a priority market, the organizers say.
Catch up quick: Al Jaber has been increasingly focusing on the AI-energy nexus.
- "The race for AI supremacy is essentially an energy play," he said in March. "We need every energy option available."
- Today's meeting follows an earlier ENACT event in Abu Dhabi in late 2024.
- It's consistent with Al Jaber's interest in "majlis," an Emirati tradition of communal meetings that he deployed late in the COP28 negotiations.
Friction point: Environmentalists fear that fossil fuels will play an outsized role in meeting data-center demand growth, adding lots of new CO2 emissions.
- And the U.S. buildout comes as Capitol Hill Republicans and Trump 2.0 officials look to massively slash clean energy incentives in the 2022 climate law.
The bottom line: Al Jaber called ENACT an effort to "connect the dots between sectors to help drive coordinated solutions" on AI energy needs in the event's June 4 announcement.
- It's also about what AI can do for energy, he said, citing potential to boost efficiency and abundance that "represent the bedrock of sustainable growth."
