AI’s Power Hunger, Sovereign AI & Sand Scarcity - Lessons from South Africa (with Tom Eaton)

Elephants in the Boardroom

Graeme Codrington and Dean Van Leeuwen explore this month’s “grey elephants”: the collision of AI and energy demand, the strategic rise of sovereign AI, and an overlooked resource, sand. Then Graeme sits down with Cape Town–based writer and columnist Tom Eaton to unpack what the world can learn from South Africa’s last 30 years: state capture, institutional decay and repair, and why change can arrive suddenly, good or bad.

Key Topics Discussed

AI x Energy

• Data centres scaling to small-nation power loads; AI is both energy hog and grid optimizer.
• Two futures: grids buckle vs. AI catalyses smarter, cleaner, more resilient systems.
• Boardroom takeaway: align digital and energy strategies; efficiency is competitive advantage.

“Cloud” in Space

• Big idea doing the rounds: gigawatt-scale AI training clusters off-planet.
• Regardless of space hype, leaders must solve earthbound energy constraints first.

Sovereign AI

• Nations racing to control compute + energy + data to reduce dependency on rivals.
• Corporate echo: prove AI value, then move toward sovereign AI footprints (own models, data, infra).

Sand Scarcity

• Specific sands for cement, silicon chips, glass are finite and ecologically costly to extract.
• Expect supply shocks, regulation, and materials innovation opportunities.

Quiz Corner

• Sector with up to 60% electricity savings via AI optimization: Utilities.
• Companies leading in AI projected to widen revenue gap vs. peers by ~30% (near-term).
• Term for national AI stacks: Sovereign AI.

Interview - Tom Eaton

• No going back: after institutional damage, restoration is slow, contested, and incomplete.
• Beware “liberator euphoria”: the post-crisis leader gets too much leeway; stay critical.
• No adults in the building: don’t assume competent saviours or self-preservation will fix systems.
• Change can be sudden: systems can transform quickly—worse or better—so keep options ready.
• Personal advice: be less online; read history to gain perspective and pattern recognition.

Featured Guest

Tom Eaton — South African author, screenwriter, and columnist known for incisive commentary across politics and culture. His recent writing distils practical lessons from South Africa’s experience with corruption, state capture, and democratic resilience for a world facing similar trends.

Connect with Graeme and Dean

• Connect with Graeme Codrington on LinkedIn
• Email Dean Van Leeuwen: [email protected]
• Explore the 7 Grey Elephants: www.tomorrowtodayglobal.com/greyelephants
• General enquiries: [email protected]

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Links and articles

• Jeff Bezos: Are Data Centres in Space the Next AI Frontier?
• How China used more cement in 3 years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th Century
• World Economic Forum - The $3.3 trillion climate question: Can data centres take the heat?

Links from the Guest (Tom Eaton)

• Newsletter: Another Day in Paradise with Tom Eaton
• Article “South Africa: the world’s cheat sheet for what comes next”
• Newsletter (fiction/writing): A Note from Tom Eaton
• Book: An Act of Murder by Tom Eaton