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

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

From Elephants in the Boardroom by TomorrowToday Consulting

November 7, 2025 · 59 min · Season 1 · Episode 10

About this episode

The episode discusses the intersection of AI, energy demand, and resource scarcity, with insights from Tom Eaton on South Africa's socio-political landscape.

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…

More episodes of Elephants in the Boardroom

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Elephants in the Boardroom podcast page.