AI Showdown: States vs White House, Data Center Freeze Fears & Google’s Q-Day Countdown

Hey everyone. Happy Wednesday. Welcome here to our Techstrong gang show for this fine Wednesday.

We are just up to our ears in what's going on in the tech scene these days. There's so much of it. Where we used to have one link per segment, we're finding ourselves with two, three, and more links per segment.

There's just that much news. But we've got some great people to talk about it with. Let me introduce you who we have today.

She's back in front of her brick wall, Terri Robinson, fresh off of San Francisco. Terri, good to see you. Good to see you.

We have up in Boulder, the one and only... Well, he could be from down under, but he's up on top up there, my friend Andy Mann. Our national, maybe Mike, I think we should give him another promotion.

I changed my title. International bureau chief. How about just editor at large, and he can go and do what he wants.

Okay. Editor at large, John Swartz. Hi.

And coming back off of his trip to Cleveland, Cleveland rocks, our chief content officer, Mike Bizard. Hey, gang. How are you today?

We're doing well. All right. So all kinds of stuff.

AI showdown is our opening up here. It's not one AI against the other as we might be doing on our DevOps experience show this year. Stay tuned for that.

But it's more of a showdown of is this town big enough? Who's going to control? Who's the sheriff in this town?

And some little boys like to put a tin badge on their chest and think... Well, not just little boys, some of our politicians do too, I think. But anyway, Mike, before I go any further into the politics of it, what exactly are we dealing with here?

Well, it's April Fool's Day, so what better day to talk about AI and politics, right? Mm-hmm. So here we have it.

Those various states are pushing back against a Trump administration effort to take control of the AI agenda and regulation, which is probably to say we won't have any. I think there's a bill floating through Congress that basically says that somewhere. John, you've been following this now for several weeks, and it seems to be coming to some sort of a boiling point.

What's going on? Yeah, it ratchets up, it seems every other day. And I wish I could put a timeline up on the screen because there are actions and counteractions that are going on and on, and it's been escalating since December when I think Trump issued an executive order.

And he's issued a couple of executive orders, and the gist of what they are, plus some other actions he's taken, are basically we want a light touch, pro-innovation approach to artificial intelligence. In other words, we don't want any form of regulation. And it's kind of boiled down to this.

He has created, through his executive orders, a tech bro council that he's created with Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, and a few others, and various other acts. This kind of debate where he wants no state laws. He wants those eviscerated.

He wants them wiped off the books that address guardrails for AI. He wants a federal mandate, which in other words is, as you mentioned, means we're not going to have one. So what's happened is there are several states, and I think the latest was California's Gavin Newsom, who's the governor, who coincidentally is probably running for president, issued an executive order of his own requiring safety and privacy guardrails from AI companies.

Illinois's done the same thing. And what a coincidence, their governor, Pritzker, is probably also going to run for president. So this has become a political football, in my opinion.

The midterms, we're already seeing candidates running against AI. In a sense, on one side, we have the mega companies and Trump saying we need pro-innovation. We can't have regulation.

AI is too important in this arms race. We can't compete with China. So they're on one side.

On the other side, we have the regulators or the people who actually want some sort of sense of guardrails, led by people who are directly opposed to Trump. There's also many Republicans who feel the same way. So we've got this kind of showdown between states and the federal government, and it's only going to escalate, and we're going to see this become a focal point of a lot of commercials, a lot of speeches, and a lot of campaigns.

I'm just happy to see the present administration following that old Republican kind of mantra of let's give it out to the states. Let's push it out to the states. What happened to the Republican party we grew up with?

Honestly. It exists. And while we're at it, here's another thing that irks the crap out of me.

I'm against governing by fiat. I don't care whether you're a president signing things in Sharpies or you're the governor of a big state, we have a thing in this country called legislators, legislatures. From our federal government down to our state and local government, they all have bodies of duly elected officials who are supposed to approve.

We just had no king's day. Now we're back. We don't historically govern by fiat.

That's why we have a system of checks and balances. One person doesn't get to call all the shots. The amount of legislation that's been put through Congress in the last year and a half or whatever is heartbreaking.

There was the one big beautiful bill whichIt ain't so beautiful, and it's probably big. But look, my guess was $4 and change this morning. So if a legislative body can't approve this, I question whether it's good for the people.

Well, right. Because we- Because they're supposed to be the voice of the people. We've grown to where we've accepted this, right?

To take that at face- Not all of us have. Well, no, not all of... Not me, but as a society, it doesn't seem to disturb that many people that we have an executive ruling by fiat.

It's probably part of the whole no kings thing, right? You don't want that. But this administration, and some of the states do it too, but this administration wants the quick, easy way around things.

They don't want to have to have any kind of serious debate in the- No ... legislature about this topic or any- Well, it's the same thing as their cybersecurity policy. Yeah, y- The same thing as their health policy.

This is the notion of an AI policy. A notion. And by the way, the policy is about four pages.

Well, that's typical- Actually, it's as long as this ... because after that, I think it's- What did you call it, Froshore? like a KFC or McDonald's.

But- Like a menu. Yeah. Like a menu, yeah.

So here's my problem with the whole thing, now. So everybody who is advocating for some sense of guardrails, great. But Terry, does anybody have any idea what those guardrails are?

Because what are we going to say? " No, from my conversations at RSA, no. People were not specific about what that might be.

They did make a distinction between guardrails on the, say, the server side of things versus guardrails that would stop individuals for being abused or doing awful things or whatever. But there's- Look to Europe ... they're talking about agents, police agents.

Oh, that's what we need. Will they wear masks, too? Yeah.

And will they come, I don't know, throw other agents on the ground when... Anyway. Or kill them.

But there's not been a lot of what those guardrails might actually look like. And that is the point, though, right? Look, if this was normal times and we had a functioning government- Mm-hmm ...

with all three branches, and there was an act of Congress signed by a president that said, "We are going to have a federal AI policy that is laid out. We're going to have a committee. We're going to have an agency.

Here is the guardrails. Here are the guardrails. " You know what?

I'd be for it. I think that's a good thing. Right.

The same way we have a European Union, not 27 different European nations with legislatures. You know that- This is- But we don't ... this Trump policy, basically the policy framework- It's a notion ...

it boils down to two things. They want to establish a single national standard that strips states of their rights- Right ... or the power to regulate, and it wants to cement, this is so weird, cement American dominance in AI to address child safety, energy costs, and digital rights, and that's the gist of it.

Right. With a light hand towards regulation, and that's as deep as he can get before the next Big Mac gets served up. Well, that's 100- That's the problem we have here.

That's 100% on brand, though, for him, right? No, it is. It's the notion of a plan.

That's right. And then- It's the same thing through and through. Look, sometimes big-boy, complex problems don't have simple answers that fit on the back of a menu.

Or in a policy. What scares me too is he's going to defer to his policy, his tech policy people, Zuckerberg- Yeah ... Jensen- Yeah ...

Nadella, Pichai, whomever, Dell, and Theresa May as well. It's crazy for me to think that that's entirely the purpose. Yeah.

It looks to me at least, because there is no detail here, and this government, generally, this administration generally does this in order to do the grift. Okay? If we look at it from this angle, from this lens, of how do they grift out of this, then having clear guidelines is problematic, because then you can't bend them and break them- Mm ...

for the people who you want to. Right? You can't have legislation, you can't have experts, because then you can't favor people doing the wrong thing just because you want to grift out of them.

Look, I don't know. I need to get a permanent installation of a tinfoil hat, I think, because every time I see stuff like this out of the government, I think this is the worst. It empowers the worst of these rogue- No, but here's the guys- Oh, come on.

The worst of all ... Hollywood had this right 50, 60, 70 years ago, maybe more. This is Potterville we're building.

And we've got Potter and his cronies running the government here, right? Or worse, it's "Back to the Future Part 2" or whatever it was, when Biff got the comic book, and you got- It's a video ... Biff over here and his buddies doing it, right?

This is the world we live in. You got a heroin addict who kills things as your health secretary. You've got a Russian agent as your intelligence person, right?

Well, you've got an alcoholic white nationalist as your secretary of war, Mars. And well perfumed and carefully coiffed lecturing soldiers on what nationalism is. And you've got the Department of Homeland...

Wait, it gets worse. It gets worse. You've got a Department of Homeland Security-Former Department of Homeland Security, whose husband, I don't know, appears to be a cross-dresser.

You couldn't make this stuff up. Hollywood would bounce you out for being ridiculous. " How does this kind of- Actually, that's happening.

I went to a No Kings rally, full disclosure, on Saturday, and I saw a lot of AI- I did, too ... signs and placards. Yeah.

There were. I wish I had taken some pictures of them. About jobs and affordability.

Well, also- And data centers now ... is this going to go the way, though, of privacy? Although there's been serious work done on privacy, but where is that nat privacy legislation?

It sort of went to that patchwork of states, right? And with companies sort of hewing toward the most stringent, which might be California. What?

It's Massachusetts also. Is that what it's going to turn out to be? Because in the absence, nature- Of absence ...

abhors a vacuum. In the absence of federal real policy, you're going to get that, right? Yeah.

And so par for the course. Well, I think- But look, before you- ... quote John Harrison, you'll be taking my AI out of my cold, dead hands.

I used to be very- Don't tread on me. Second Amendment courtesy. I think ultimately it's going to need legislation, and legislation at both state and federal level.

An executive order, it's a law, but it's the weakest law. Mm-hmm. It's very much the weakest kind of law.

It's very easily overridden by any kind of legislation. Not in Including at the state level. We're going to need that- But again- The executive order is just not enough to actually do anything ...

in the absence of congressional action, the only other recourse you have is the courts, the judiciary, and then you've got to wind its way through the courts, and that takes time, and you've got a Supreme Court that frankly is par for the... The court you get is the court you deserve. You got this over there, that's what you deserve.

But there have been a lot of his EOs in the last couple of weeks that- That have been getting knocked down, because they're that ridiculous, but- Exactly. Maybe this one will go the same way, but- I believe it will. But we- It will ...

you know what the shame is? We do need AI policy. It's an important thing.

We need competent people who maybe don't have to take a nap every afternoon after the McDonald's run. We need competent people, period. And to put a day into this thing.

But anyway, let's move along. Move along. These are not the droids we're looking for anyway.

What about a data center moratorium? Mike, tell me it ain't true. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, so Bernie Sanders and AOC are out there with a call for a moratorium, and basically their argument is that we're moving too fast down this path without understanding the implications, and there's a lot of folks who live in the regions around these data centers that got a lot of complaints, everything from the noise to the water, to the price of electricity.

Andy, you looked at this stuff, and do we need to take a breath here? Absolutely not, but also yes. Look- ...

I'd start with what the hell is a data center? If anyone's going to do legislation and try and regulate construction of data centers, you have to kind of define a data center, and I defy people to do that in a cohesive way. Mm.

Is a server closet a data center? What about a whole room in the office that's just containing server equipment? Is that your data center now?

What about the three stories of an urban high-rise that are dedicated to computer operations, including the equipment? You won't even know what a data center is to look at. It might be that big warehouse out in the boonies of your local city, in the industrial area, no windows, people coming in at all hours of the day and night, but only a few.

A, what is a data center? So start there. B, the idea of this being an existential moment I think is crazy.

We are growing in terms of cloud spend. A great article from my old mate James McGuire about the continued spend on cloud. So when AOC and Bernie are talking about a moratorium on data center construction, they're very much targeting this at AI data center construction.

This is a bit more of a backdoor into legislating AI than it is to really stopping data center construction. Because the demand is there. Cloud computing, AI.

James was talking about how agentic AI is going to explode the number of compute systems and processes, and I think he's spot on. There's also ancillary requirements for provisioning and security and monitoring, platform as a service. More and more edge devices too, sending their data for processing.

You think about the rise of all these small devices and 5G devices and so forth. So look, A, you're never going to figure out what a data center is. B, you don't even know it when you see it.

We do legitimately need data centers for good purposes, not just to do evil, the old Mackrell smart line, but to do good as well. We likely do need controls. This market-based strategy, whenever anyone talks about a market-based strategy, I always start to worry.

And if they're talking about it and they label themselves as the Abundance Institute, then I'm really flying some red flags. But it's not like they're job creators. Construction is quick and rudimentary operations only requires a few people, but they do require a lot of costs.

Water, power, cooling, waste. These affect local communities in very significant ways. Local communities should have more say.

I don't think a moratorium, though, I think that's crazy talk. " That's just effing impossible. I almost swore, sorry.

But this is not going anywhere. So can I weigh in here? Sure.

Can I weigh in here? Sure. So right here, what you're looking at is the reason we had segment one the way it is.

This is the second act of insanity. If segment one is the first act of insanity- Mm-hmm ... this is the second.

And this is exactly why you wind up with that, because what planet are they on? Do they really think this is the solution? And here's the crime.

I read an article, I don't know if it was in "The Times" or "The Washington Post," or maybe it was even "The Journal" a week or two ago. Guy lives in North Virginia, what they call Data Center Alley or something like that, the highest concentration of data centers. He wakes up, he hears this huge buzzing sound.

He thinks it's going to go away. Hours later, it's still buzzing. Turns out a new data center opened even closer to his house, and that was just the noise it made from the air conditioning, and he's going to have to get used to that.

He has to get better soundproofing. Is this a problem in America? Yes.

Do we want our electric bills to go up because we're building AI data centers? No. Do we have to figure out cooling without using any clean water we have left?

Yes. But I'm reminded of Martin. Why can't we have Martin Sheen from "The West Wing" back?

But I'm reminded of Martin Sheen- The feels. Right? What would Martin Sheen say about this?

We've got a real problem. This is the time... " "This is the time for real solutions to real problems from real people," not fantasy.

This fantasy stuff is not real. This is only going to get Mom, Pa Kettle in Missouri somewhere, get their shotguns out and say, "The socialists are at it again," or something. Right?

This is fodder for them. Why? This is fantasy.

We need real solutions. We do have to do something about data centers. We can't stop making them.

We need them, but we've maybe got to put them in areas or put some noise constraints in, figure out the energy, figure out the water. " No, you try to heal the patient. This is the reason it's hard.

It's hard to be in this predicament. You've got these people and those people. Where are the sane people in the middle?

Where are the sensible people who need to come forward here and make this real? We're not going to stop building data centers. We got to do a better job.

We got to figure out the electricity, the water, and the NIMBY kind of issues that we're dealing with. But progress stops for no one, and this does nothing but increase the political discourse in this country. I'm done.

Well, and that- It's the rallying cry, use AI as interjected into every political discussion. And in the case of Sanders, as much as I admire him on many things, I think he's also kind of triangulating this. In a sense, he is looking at robotics and projections of people being replaced and thinking that data centers lead to this.

I think he's linked the two, and it's a disservice. But thank God Congress can't do anything because bad bills actually don't need to happen, and this is not going to happen. I think a lot- Well, I also think that these...

Yeah, I'm sorry. That some of these communities like the ones down in my home state of Louisiana, they're convinced that these are the things that are going to pull them out of economic ruin, right? And so they're going to be on the side of the data center.

If you could see some of the things that people are saying down there, it's quite remarkable, and we've talked before about how it's not that many jobs that it's going to offer. But I just was reading an article in the last couple of days, a local article, about the Richland Parish data center that Meta's doing, right? And they've thrown in now there's going to be an additional $2 billion in energy savings for customers down there.

" And it's like, how do you figure thatIt does not position them to become a high-tech leader just because they have data centers. It's not the case. Sure.

How much of this is a cynical play on their part? Because they know full well that this isn't going anywhere, but all they're trying to do is maybe convince another 3% of the electorate that might vote against them in the future to stay home for one election cycle just because they're going to be mad about the noise level of the data center locally. And, it's just basically, putting out a statement to get people to think about that.

" But there's a lot of folks that voted for Trump that like Bernie, too. So, yeah, they're going to lose them. But Mike, I'm not sure what you're saying.

And by the time they make their energy costs go high. Mike, are you saying the enemies of AOC and Bernie will say that, or are you saying Bernie and AOC said this? I'm saying that I just need, in certain counties, I just need 5% of the people who would normally vote Republican to stay home for an election cycle to win.

And some of these statements that are coming out are designed to do just that. I don't think they think this bill's going to pass anything. I think it's more of the- No, I don't think this bill's designed to appeal to those people, because those people are the people Terry's talking about.

Mike, this is red meat for their base. Mm. Right?

This is red meat for their base. We- And you can bet against them, although- But what they do... Look, this is what happened in 2016, and it's what's been going on since.

They represent a pretty far left base that doesn't necessarily, as it's proven in the primaries now for three elections in a row, it doesn't represent the majority of the Democratic position. But it's nevertheless a sizable base of it, and in order for us to do anything in this country, I really believe, I don't care whether you were a Republican or a Democrat at one time, but if you consider yourself a moderate, a centrist, not on that side and not all the way on that side, neither of those end poles represent where we need to be. We need common sense in government.

You don't throw away the AI baby with some energy bathwater. You nurture it. And I just think they put this out there to give meat to their base, but at the same time, they drive a wedge in their own party, and not only is it fresh meat for their base, it's fresh meat for the other base who says, "You see, I told you.

" It's just like there's no nuance because these folks don't understand this stuff. Right. When it comes to tech in particular, there's always extremist views.

Yes. And that's why there's never any legislation passed because- No ... they don't understand it, they can't, there's no bipartisanship, and it's all just for headlines and to keep everybody- It's playing to their base.

Yeah. It's why we can't have nice things, I guess. All right.

Can we stop this though now and move on to just something else? I am done. Sure.

Please. My Oura Ring is telling me my stress management skills are going right down the tubes here. All right.

Well, since continuing on some of this conversation, we are going to shift the gear here to Q Day, and Google is out talking about how Q Day is coming in 2029. I kind of thought it was already planned for 2029. I know IBM is building a data center full of quantum computers here in New York.

It's supposed to go online in 2029, and I assume that if they have one, other folks will too. And so Q Day at the latest is 2029 in my mind, but Terry, what's your thought about... I was counting it up the other day, and I think, if we aim for 2029, if I just focus on the number of actual working days and take off holidays and weekends, I think we got maybe 365 actual days to solve this problem.

Time to get going. I think with this that they actually are trying to, a couple of things, introduce some urgency here. Right?

Because some of the predictions might have been later in the 2030s. I think that's unrealistic. I think we'll reach it earlier than that.

My own personal opinion. But, I think they're trying to introduce some urgency and maybe signal to the public that they're trying to do something about it, right? So, they're prioritizing authentication services.

The Android 17 is going to integrate the PQC digital signature protection. So, maybe a little for show, maybe a sense of maybe, I don't know, maybe they're talking to people and feeling like nobody's taking this as seriously as they should. " Well, there's agents to worry about.

Right. There's agents to worry about, so, we're not going to think about this right now. We'll handle that as it comes.

" Okay. " Mm. But just, I actually had somebody say that to me, and I'm like- You know what?

I-At RSA though, I had the pleasure of interviewing from Digicert, Lakshmi, and I forget her last name, but Lakshmi and I are going to be doing a whole podcast series together. I'm very excited. Great.

She is their Chief Information Security Officer Plus Plus, something like that. Brilliant woman. And of course, we did the Quantum Security 25 list with our Digicert, so I had the chance to interview many of the 25 people on that list.

Here's the thing about Q-Day. " You don't even see it coming. One day, it's not like Hallmark is going to start putting cards in the aisle to get Q-Day cards.

No. Or we're not going to have one of these fake holidays, it's Q-Day, and everyone will post pictures on Facebook. It's going to happen, and then months later, we're going to hear it happened, that the quantum computer is out there.

By the way, if you watch the "Paradise" TV show series on Hulu- Yeah ... season two concluded recently, and that has a great quantum play in it, too, which I highly recommend. But here's the thing.

Forget about Q-Day. It's already in action. Harvest now, decrypt later.

It's been going on. The bad guys know that Q-Day's coming, even if we don't want to acknowledge it. IBM has put a flag in the ground, too, for around '28, '29 for Q-Day.

Right? They know it's coming. They are stealing hashed, encrypted payloads and stashing them away, waiting for Q-Day so they can decrypt these payloads and get to that information, some of which will be decayed and useless, but a lot of it'll be good.

And this is happening. Why is Google doing this, though, you ask? Well, Google is the prime mover behind shortening the life of SSL certificates.

Right. They're moving to a 47-day certificate cycle. How'd they pick 47 days?

You could go ask quantum people, but your certificates will last 47 days, and then you got to renew them. And the idea is, is when you renew them, that's when they're going to give you the post-quantum algorithm in that certificate. So it's a way of getting us on a post-quantum algorithm, or post-quantum proof certificates before Q-Day comes.

And I believe the 47-day, it's either at the end of '27 or '28, which makes '29 an obvious number. But that's what this is all about. I don't know.

I think there's more at play here. Most of the enterprise organizations that I know are not likely to be able to swap out their encryption schemes in time for 2029. It's just a huge undertaking.

Yeah, but if their certificates expire, they have to. Yeah, the certificates themselves, but the scheme, the underlying data storage system- Yes ... is a major effort.

And isn't it just awfully convenient that we have this crisis coming in about two years, and I have this handy dandy lovely new storage system that has post-quantum encryption on it that you can buy today and not have the problem tomorrow. Exactly. So how much of this is like basically an IT selling motion, John?

Does this smell to you like maybe something we saw at the start of the turn of this past century? Yes. Remember Y2K?

Oh, yes. Remember that? Remember we all had to rush and rush, and spend and spend, and so, never mind.

I get an inkling, a Spidey sense of this happening all over again. But it's a great marketing opportunity. And one thing that these companies love doing is selling fear and selling things in the future that aren't quite crystal clear yet.

And I think they see an opportunity here, and I'm so glad you brought that up. Yeah. Andy, you've been in IT marketing for a while.

Is there a little of this going on here? What's happening here? Oh, mate, you think there's a little bit of marketing going on?

Like this isn't a massive thing, that we all have to change everything and spend more money? Look, as a CTO, I can absolutely hear the excitement. There's enterprise salespeople literally jumping up and down counting their Porsches, right?

This is absolutely a cash grab. Look, I do see the similarity to Y2K, in that this is probably a real problem, which these vendors are going to try and make us spend 10 times what we need to, but we'll fix it anyway. I do think that this is a real problem.

You think about the ability to crack these password tables, be able to use quantum computing to get that compute speed to be able to crack passwords that we couldn't ever before. That's a real thing, and it probably is coming, I think probably two weeks. I don't know.

Maybe I've been influenced by this administration too much. It could be two weeks, could be two years. It's coming, but it's not that panic, and it's absolutely an opportunity to sell more software.

And by the way, more hardware, because you're going to have your chips as well. So what? I'm going to do an entire refresh of my entire enterprise IT infrastructure?

Oh, wow. I don't think that's going to happen, but I think there's a lot of people who are planning to. So I did try to explain it to a business executive, and so basically, he looked at me and he went, "So let me get this straight.

" This has been going on the last year or so that you can't miss out on AI, agentic AI, autonomous systems. We need to do this immediately. This is just like this- Oh, absolutely ...

it's a playbook. And meanwhile- ... we're shutting down billion-dollar investments that were mandatory five years ago, right?

Yes. A metaverse is just gone. That's a perfect example.

Nothing left. Yeah. And we've seen this before, of course, 3D, virtual reality, these were essential for every enterprise, not just consumer, this is for enterprises.

And meanwhile, nothing at all. Maybe it's in the closet with you, Newton. Remember the augmented reality from Apple.

Oh, we've got to do this. Yeah, Christian, yeah. They've focused on WWDC for three years with the same damn example all three years.

Well, you know what? Apple's coming up on their 50th anniversary. It happened yesterday.

Yes. Last night they had a concert with Paul McCartney at the Apple Park. That's fantastic.

Yeah. And you talk about this, or we didn't talk about today, we'll talk about it maybe tomorrow, but Oracle is laying off, what is it, 15% of their workforce or something so they can invest more money in AI? Something like between 30,000 out of 162, yeah.

Oh, look, Larry is on that Presidential Physical Fitness Council, so. And you've got to find the money to buy ByteDance too, right? All right.

We are descending into the fourth level of Dante's Inferno here. I got to go do my AI jumping jacks. All right.

There you go. There you go. You'll get a little pin.

Hey, you know what? What a great Techstrong gang today. Andy, Terry, John, Mike, thank you.

Thank you for watching. We've got Techstrong gang following the replay of that, as always. We've got a whole bunch of great stuff coming on.

I want to wish a very happy Passover tonight to everyone who celebrates Passover. Of course, we have Easter this weekend as well, so it's a bit of a holiday week, and that always gives us a time to reflect that maybe we can do better. But until then, on behalf of our gang in Techstrong and everyone else here, have a great day, everyone.

We're out.