Six hinge points that will decide the AI race

Ryan Green: Hello everyone, and welcome back to Data Cloud Now. We're currently in San Francisco, and I'm now delighted to be joined by Graham Brookie, Vice President, Technology Programs at Atlantic Council, along with Matthew Rose, Head of Corporate and Government Affairs at Snowflake. Gentlemen, such a pleasure to sit down with both of you here today.

Matthew Rose: Ryan, this is This is really exciting. It's good to be speaking with you again.

Graham Brookie: It's exciting to be on this floor. There's a lot going on, but I'm excited to dive into this conversation.

Ryan Green: We're surrounded by 20,000 of of our closest friends here. So, Graham, to start with, can you tell us a little bit about the Atlantic Council and what your team does?

Graham Brookie: Well, the Atlantic Council is a leading foreign policy think tank, international relations think tank, that's headquartered in DC, but it's a truly global operation. So, the teams that I oversee and and run at the Atlantic Council are the technological programs. We do a lot of tech research, we do a lot of capacity building with partners around the world, we do a lot of policy work that's focused on big structural change to meet the moment. And our mission at the Atlantic Council is shaping the global future together. Now, in this moment of AI, we see increasing geopolitical competition, increasing interdependence, and rapid tech change. And AI is the kind of convergence of all three of those things at once. So, that's what we're really, really focused on right now.

Ryan Green: It's wonderful to hear, and Snowflake recently contributed to the Atlantic Council Geotech Commission on AI. Why was now the appropriate time to launch this report, and what is the central message leaders should take away from it? Matthew, why don't we start with you?

Matthew Rose: Yeah, Ryan. First off, I completely agree with Graham said and now's the time and you know, from our vantage point and what we're seeing in enterprise every day is artificial intelligence is really at an inflection point. What we're seeing is years past, especially in some industries, some places around the world, it was research and development or pilot. Now, that's not the case. We've moved into enterprise grade artificial intelligence solutions that are just solving problems for industry, solving problems for for the for the public, arguably. And as as we see it, it was important to be a part of the conversation, especially at that data layer. Unfortunately, sometimes what we see is several they view procurement of the best model as getting to artificial intelligence and we knew that wasn't the case and we wanted to be really clear on on setting what we thought to be really important part of the dialogue. And you're exactly right, Sridhar was one of the commissioners. I and others with many of our partners on the floor today contributed to the report. Atlantic Council is a great convener of that and they understood that, you know, ultimately there was no AI strategy without a data strategy and we wanted to bring all of our partners and that key message into the report.

Ryan Green: Great perspective and Graham, from your seat.

Graham Brookie: Well, AI is changing the global landscape and we've really got to figure this out and figure it out now. And so, what the commission did is it brought together six issue areas that we see as really, really critical hinge points and too often in AI where where managing AI or different aspects of AI in silos or by sectors. And so, we picked energy, talent, innovation, supply chain, how government is interacting this with this and then how allies and partners around the world are interacting with this moment. And we see those things as interrelated. What the commission did is it brought together leaders at like Sridhar, like Matthew and a number of folks that are on the floor as you mentioned and and what they represented is about 18 trillion dollars in market capitalization. So, a lot of leaders in this space, about 25% of the US stock market was represented in the room and getting folks from different sectors together to really figure out where they need to be working together. One of the core findings of the report is that AI has to be managed as an ecosystem as opposed to like what the latest frontier model is. And so figuring that out together is really again core mission of of shaping the global future. It's essential.

Ryan Green: You know, it's very well said. I want to dive a little bit deeper into that point. The argue the report argues to your point that AI competition is no longer just about who builds the most advanced model. It's about who can build, power, deploy, secure, and govern the AI ecosystem. For where you see it, what does that shift mean for US leadership and what does that mean for the enterprise leaders writ large? Graham, let's keep with you.

Graham Brookie: So I think the core point here is that we are living through the fastest rate of technological change in human history. So what we're talking about today on any given specific issue might not be what we're talking about tomorrow. And so having a set of of approaches that we can iterate on and adapt more quickly than our geopolitical competitors is absolutely essential. So if for the commission we worked worked over eight months and during that eight months here's all of the things that changed. Number one, 18 new frontier model releases. That's one every other week. The Pope wrote an encyclical document that is focused on AI and humanity. AI was used in two major US military operations. Mythos [verify against audio] was released among other frontier models that were going to fundamentally change the global security landscape. And so if all of that happened in just eight months while this commission was convening to figure this out, we've really got to to come together and figure out how to iterate as quickly as possible to compete most effectively and again manage this as an ecosystem.

Ryan Green: Well said. And Matthew from your seat.

Matthew Rose: Yeah, there's so much here Ryan and you know, I'll just highlight a few things. First off, to US leaders in Washington, a key focus right now is the US advantage in artificial intelligence and a in a pro-growth mindset. So, when you think about what the US leaders and and it provides quite a few policy updates and and Graham's exactly right about the key the key message. It's about the ecosystem. So, too often we see a focus on energy a focus specifically R&D or even some of the programs coming out that's that's receiving grants and such. And they're right to focus on specific areas, but what in order to get a true US advantage, it's based off the ecosystem because you don't have artificial intelligence without every layer that makes it up. For those in an enterprise in particular, what we're finding is is a key focus on governance, on safety, on security, right? And these cannot be, you know, these can't just be bolted on at the end. So, what you know, we've been we've been key and what we're delivering in Snowflake is a data platform that has that as features and not bolt on footnotes at at the end. So, we're helping provide that, but truly enterprise leaders need to think about it. Again, it's not a model procurement exercise or it's not focusing on one sliver. It's having that data infrastructure environment that's ready for the developments and the use cases today, but also to grow with you. And where you have those overlaps between enterprise and policy makers, that's where the real opportunity is. And and you know, I I start to think about some areas that the report stated whether it's interoperability or whether it's standards. And I think that's where Snowflake and others in the ecosystem can can create a win-win-win, especially with that overlap between policy makers and enterprise.

Ryan Green: Actually, this feeds perfectly into my next question. How do you envision Snowflake and other companies using the insights from the report to make better strategic business decisions in areas like AI investment, trusted infrastructure, or global growth? Matthew, let's stick with you.

Matthew Rose: Yeah, so so first off, we've been at this since day one and you see this in what we build, whether it's trust, governance, security. Again, these are features that are inherent in the platform. And it's not just about serving one need within one jurisdiction or for one industry, it's global. What we believe is that customers own their data, they own their workloads, they're responsible for securing them, and we're going to give them the tools to do so. So, whether it's sovereignty in the EU, whether it's highly secure public safety use cases, you have the tools provided. And that's what we believe, you know, again in what we're building. In terms of investment, you know, speaking to enterprise, but also the enterprise of governments around the world, as you think about it, you need infrastructure, data infrastructure that's interoperable, that can scale from pilot to production at true scale. And so, when you think about the investments, especially at that data layer, it needs to have interoperability built built in. And then finally, in terms of global growth, we continue to see, you know, the landscape of growth really growing. And that's what the report found. Graham just had one metric of $18 trillion of market cap. That That's unfathomable when you think about it, right? So, our approach to that is in order to serve everybody that's growing in the space, needs to be multi-cloud, multi-model, multi-region, so that we can serve and no leave no one truly behind.

Ryan Green: Very well said. And Graham,

Graham Brookie: Listen, it it's the 250th birthday of the United States. And in our history, we have led in a lot of technological change. That's part of the fabric of the story of our country. That's part of what we do. We bring together builders, we bring together innovators, we iterate around shared purpose. And in this moment of AI, there's a lot that's up for grabs globally right now. And I think we have to be very, very direct about that. There's a lot at stake for our economy, for our day-to-day lives, for our security around the world. And so, my expectation in how this commission finding or how these commission findings will be used and how we can work together with partners is that in this moment, a lot of those former technological innovations in this country have been driven by government. And right now we have an ecosystem that has a lot more stakeholders including industry leaders, including innovators in in labs around the country in particular. And so how do we create shared purpose that is built at the speed of AI in order for this country to remain a global leader. That is essential. And so using any of the findings to move that forward, that central premise forward I I I think is what we're going to be focused on here [inaudible].

Ryan Green: Very well said. Great sitting down with both of you. What's next in the world of enterprise AI in the public sector? Matthew, back to you.

Matthew Rose: Well, Ryan, I don't think it's ever moved quicker, faster, with the velocity I've seen. Um so first off, we knew that the public sector, the government in particular, was always mission focused. But one key area that's touched about in the report and then when I speak with leaders everywhere and this key on everyone's mind is the workforce. And what we're seeing is that artificial intelligence is unlocking productivity for the workforce, but not just a workforce and not just a mission, it's for the impacts of the public globally. So that's first off. Next, what I'm seeing in terms of artificial intelligence especially at the enterprise level is that it's allowing proactive deployment of resources, whether that's the public safety, public health, military, or public funds to fight things like fraud, waste, and abuse. All of the use cases, the government and the public sector is every industry, represents everyone around the world. And what I'm seeing is enterprise AI is really proactively unlocking that. And then finally, this is something really exciting. Same day the Atlantic Council released a report was the same day in the United States, the President of the United States signed the artificial uh intelligence EO on cybersecurity. We're seeing a key focus on public private partnerships, not just in the US, but again, we have the AI EO on cybersecurity. We're seeing the AI workforce hub that we'll be a part of and the public private partnership there. In Europe, we're seeing updates and outreach to to everybody as it relates to sovereignty. It's really exciting, especially when you bring the public and the private together, and I think that's where you're going to see the most gains.

Ryan Green: Very well said. And Graham.

Graham Brookie: One of the key findings of the report is that you can't manage what you can't measure. And so, across all of those areas of focus that have traditionally been been managed by silo or by sector, I we're really focused on measuring what success looks like in all of those silos or sectors. So, on uh public trust in AI, which is an essential part of our national competitiveness, how do you measure that? How do you solve for that collectively? On things like energy usage in AI, or how do we power AI? What are the key metrics that we're focused on uh on creating more efficiency, creating more demand or a more supply for energy? And so, measuring all of those things collectively is really, really essential. Um as Matthew said, I Where do we go next from this commission? I I We're going to really, really stay focused on this. Uh and what I would expect is that uh we'll start to leverage some of those findings and a lot of the policy conversations in Washington, D.C., a lot of the really important international conversations in places like New York and Geneva, uh and we're going to stay at it.

Ryan Green: I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next. Gentlemen, such a pleasure sitting down with both of you.

[Speaker to confirm: Graham or Matthew]: Ryan, would love to have you in D.C. Would love to have continue the conversation shortly.

Ryan Green: Let's make that happen. Gentlemen, thank you again.

Matthew Rose: Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Green: And for the audience watching, I'm Ryan Green with Data Cloud Now. Goodbye now. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time.