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Well back to Tesla shares down two percent in the after hours. The company posted third quarter profit that fell short of Wall Street's expectations despite record ev sales. I want to bring back Ed Ludlow. He's the co host of Bloomberg Tech, and also bring in Ross Gerber. He's president and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management got more than three billion dollars in assets under management.
He joins us from Santa Monica, California. Ross, you now have about eighty million dollars of Tesla shares, down from one hundred million earlier this year. At it, at your peak, how much Tesla stock did you own?
I think we had about one and a half times more than we have today.
So that's not that much more.
No, we've got our.
Positioned by sixty percent, So that's that's fairly large.
Are you Are you buying or selling today or buying or selling right now?
Neither neither.
You know, you know Tesla as a hold for us. You know, the people who are holding the stock at our firm, our clients very much believe in Tesla and don't want to let go of their shares at all. And then you know, the clients that don't want to own Tesla don't own Tesla anymore. But we're not recommending to buy Tesla or per Se more likely recommending to sell Tesla for investors up at these prices because you're
getting such a premium valuation. But in general, we've just been holding the stock because you know, we're kind of stuck with our position right now.
What about you, because we check in with you quarterly and you've really changed your position on the company in recent years in recent quarters and your position on Elon Musk too.
Are you a believer in the company right now?
Yes, and no.
I still own Tesla's stock as well personally, not a lot, but you know I like to have some because I bought it at a dollar a share or a dollar fifty, So it's like fun to have in my portfolio still. But that said, you know, I don't know what's going to happen with full self driving. I just don't think it works, and I think vision only systems don't work. And I'm very sure of this now. Even though I'm not an engineer, I can explain to you how humans drive.
And I don't think Elon gets how humans work. I think he gets how machines work. And so I think that Tesla's in a pickle. If they can solve full full self driving, like I could get in my car right now and push a button and it drives me home, Like I can get in a Weymo right now and it'll drive me home no problem, then I think Tesla has a reason to buy the stock because now they've got their products working and they can grow from there.
But as far as waiting for robots and cabs to pay off, it doesn't matter if full self driving doesn't work. And full self driving doesn't work, so nothing's going to get me excited about Tesla until it drives me home.
All right, good stuff, we're talking with Ross, Gerber and Ludlow. I know you're reading over stuff. Come on into the conversation with Roth.
Yeah, I mean, you know, just going through the deck. The way that Tesla explains it is that they had lower FSD revenue recognition in this quarter because of the timing of previous generation releases of FSD in the same period a year ago.
You know, I'm not a.
Tesla shareholder, as you guys know, but I do drive a Model Y in fact, and I use FSD every day for about sixty miles thirty miles to work, thirty miles back. I'm not on version fourteen yet. But Ross is speaking to the question, which is always there. Explain the jump or the steps to the end result, the
end state. The end state is robotaxi, right if Tesla is to be believed, And right now, you know, the street seems kind of split on whether we understand how we go from a software platform that consumers pay for as a one offer a subscription package to a world where the vehicles built on a common software platform or iterations of that platform power a rope proprietary ride hailing
robotaxi service. You know, it's difficult to see the jump, and Ross can speak for himself, but just in the reporting, that's what we hear all the time.
Yeah, I mean you're one hundred percent right in that these are completely different businesses, right, Like selling cars that drive themselves is an Apple business model, And that's why
I always love Tesla. When I first found Tesla, I was like, this is the Apple of cars, right, Like you build hardware and with great software, and then you make money on services, right And that's really where Tesla's making a ton of money right now is on services and energy storage, which are still great businesses for Tesla.
But when you talk about building an Uber like platform, this is an extremely difficult thing that it took Uber almost a decade or more to make money doing, and Uber is very very good at this now and the only way they've been able to make money is by charging substantially more for the rides because Uber is not cheap anymore and they had to subsidize rides for a decade just to build that business. So when you actually think about Tesla scaling, if there was no competition, that'd
be one thing. But there's already several cab services I can take right now, whether it be Uber, Lyft or waimap that are all very good at what they do. So you know, even if Tesla gets this to work, it's still a tough business. And the second thing I would just say, ed you use full self driving a lot? Obviously you probably if I asked, do you feel comfortable turning it on and going into the backseat of your car and letting you drive that full thirty miles home?
I've never done that or attempted it, and I think you know, I post quite a lot on X my experiences, like I say today, this is what happened. You know, I would never get in the back of the car and turn it on. I also would not put my little baby boy in it either. But the way that I've tried to track it is generation by generation. How has it improved on the route that I take every day. The one area that is really struggled is with the
toll boobs on the Golden Gate Bridge. You know that can be precarious, and you can see my posts on that on your point.
In the AI graph of the shareholder deck.
The way that Tester explains it is that the latest version of FSD, they say, has a substantial amount of the source code in the Robotaxi version, and by putting it out into the real world. It gives them valuable real world data to help them improve a future robo taxi service.
I don't weigh in on that one way or the other.
I'm just saying that's Tesla's explanation on the link between the two, the consumer facing FSD and the same codebase that will be used to power a future rover taxi service.
He ed Ross made the point that he doesn't believe vision only FSD or vision only self driving works. Can you talk a little bit about that technology that that Tesla uses versus the other companies, namely Weima and Amazons, Amazon subsidiary as well.
Yeah, so very simple.
When we say vision based system, the inputs for the vehicle are only cameras on a Tesla. The cameras capture capture optical data from around the vehicle and use the underlying algorithm to make an onboard decision interpreting the world around them.
Uh.
The opposite academic view is that you need to paint a richer digital picture of the world using other forms of data gathered by lidar, radar, and in some cases even going beyond that. You know, like there are very degrees of lightar spinning or stationary or static. Sorry, The economic argument that Tesla and Elon must have always made is that having a vehicle that has multiple sensors on
it is not scalable. You know, there is no end result whether the vehicle could be affordable for a consumer or profitable for an operator of that system to run. The other robotaxi companies like Weymo or zooks, who do have multiple sensors and custom versions of them, say that
you have to have them for redundancy. So if one of those digital pictures fails, i e. The vision one, the cameras fail, or the ID or radar fails, you can still be safe because you have a rich enough digital picture of the world around you for the vehicle to make a decision based on the circumstances presented in front of it.
So I put this question to both of you, and let me just start with you, Rass. I mean, I've gotten in a weymore I love it, and I've sat in the back seat, I've closed my eyes for like a thirty forty minute trip to an airport. I have loved it. So FSD full self driving?
Is it?
Are we crazy to think that that's going to be our world going forward, or do we have to change our infrastructure dramatically to make it possible going forward? Like trying to understand because if the model is so to.
Ultrastructure is the hardest part would be the hardest part.
I'm just thinking, if it's such a torture model, like, are we crazy to even be talking about it?
You're getting into one of my favorite discussion debate issues out there right now, which is the future of what mobility actually looks like. And my basic premise is that humans love to drive and are not giving it up. And I'm now raising my children. I thought when I had children that we would have had this master that my kids would never learn to drive. But my kids learning how to drive now, you know what I'm saying. And people love to drive. Now, Younger people don't love
to drive as much as older people. That's one thing in our surveys we've noticed. Okay, but I'm not giving up driving, And if I live another thirty years, I'm still gonna love driving. And I love cars, and I love driving fast, and I love like, you know, driving the one freeway, you know, whatever you want to call it. But you know, humans love the independence and the functionality of having their own vehicle.
We've had.
It started with the horse. We all had our own horse. You fought to the death to protect your horse. And I just don't see people giving up cars anytime soon for a lot of practical reasons, like when you're doing errands and you have to store stuff in your car or pick up your kids and then go to soccer. It's like you're not going to be taking cabs everywhere.
That's just not a realistic view of the world. So unless we rejig our cities and start from scratch, where I think the biggest use case would be in very dense urban environments that are very difficult for people to drive. Just saying no more cars, it has to be cabs. That makes sense in New York City or downtown LA, let's say. But I just don't see how you implement that, because it's like millions of people already have their commuter lifestyle and I just don't see how that changes.
All right, So EDLA. That brings us back then to Tesla. If they keep talking about FSD, I mean, they're an ev company and a lot more we know that, but I don't know is it enough. I don't know momentum I look at the valuation, like, what is this company going forward?
Well, I repeat the same thing I've said every quarter for eight years. Elon Musk is often late on his predictions, but gets there in the end, and Tesla is clearly committed to this.
That's part one.
You know that largely Tesla has made economic benefit arguments and the industry has as well. There are people that disagree with Ross in that car ownership as a model is in doubt. You know, there are multiple reasons from the cost of owning and operating a vehicle through to generational attitude and appetite to go out and get a driving license that people feel will make the technology more
pervasive and be adopted. Where people agree with Ross is the environment, the infrastructure, And I go back to the reporting always. I have to go back to what we've actually reported, which is there is a piece of legislation currently dormant and is not moved beyond the proposal stage
that we reported. Elon Musk and other Tesla staff lobbied very hard on, which is to have some federal level framework where purpose built robotaxis that don't have steering wheels or pedals can be deployed unfettered in the real world, but it doesn't address that what happens with the rest of road users, and that's where academics believe we're heading for a real issue.
All Right, and Lola, we know you've got some stuff to do off of these earnings, so appreciate your input throughout the day today and certainly off of Tesla's earnings. Right, we got to run. Always enjoy talking with you, Ross, Thank you so much. Ross Gerbert, President, chief executive officer of Gerbert Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management. More than three billion in assets under management, and they own about eighty million dollars worth of Tesla shares.
Stay with us more from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
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Bloomberg's Thomas Black He recently wrote an opinion piece and he talked about the hype around humanoid robots being pretty i with forecasts of nearly one billion humanoids in service by twenty fifty, but the reality is that most people overestimate what robots can do at this point in their development. Got to say, though, one company that's been using robots a lot and for a long time and has deployed its one millionth robot happens to be one of the
world's largest market at companies out there. It's also a household name. So we wanted to check in once again with Ty Brady. He's chief technologist at Amazon Robotics. He joins us from Amazon's Delivering the Future twenty twenty five event from Amazon's d u R three. It's a delivery station in Millipedes, California, and so we kind of want to find out where they are in terms of the world of robotics. Ty, I got to tell you, Tim, and I love talking to you last time, so so
glad to check in with you again. First of all, this event, where you are, I mean right now, I just see a curtain, but I'm assuming there's lots of stuff happening at the event. Who's there, what's going on? Tell us a little bit about it?
Yep.
Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, and I really appreciate it and I enjoyed our conversation as well.
It's just really great to be here.
We are are fourth delivering the Future event here and there's a bunch of press that we have here, and we made a couple of big announcements in robotics today.
Can you tell us about them if you have.
But the first is in our manipulation robot that we call blue Jay. And what blue Jay the way that you can think of that as we can you can take three assembly lines and put it in the same footprint of one. What it does is help eliminate the menial, the mundane, and the repetitive, and it could pick more than seventy five percent of the inventory that we actually sell in our sortable network, which is a really big deal.
I'm really proud of that. And I also say there's something interesting about blue Jay as well as compared to our other bird manipulation systems Cardinal, Sparrow and Robin, it took us about three years to kind of design, deploy and get out to our frontline employees. We have actually done blue Jay with the power of AI in just over a year, so it's really the pace of innovation.
I think a lot of people think about Amazon and robots I just want to jump in because we don't have a ton of time, but I I want we'll get to some of the other announcements. They think about the Kiva Systems robots the big acquisition at the time, you know, twenty twelve. That was a big position for Amazon, and they've seen pictures of the way that those can
move large loads of things across warehouses. But if you were to go into a state of the art Amazon warehouse today, what would you see That's in addition to those Kiva robots.
Yeah, in addition to the world's first goods to person fulfillment strategy, which was a really good idea where we have more than a million robots that we manufacture action in Massachusetts doing that job every day. You're going to see more of the unstructured fields, right, So, you're going to see green robot that we call Proteus that can move big cargoes of packages to the right dock at
the right time. You're going to see many more manipulation systems that we have in there, eliminating kind of the repetitive motions that they we have. No one wants to lift a fifty pound box box all day. Robin does that cardinal does that. Moving into some of these proteus bound karts that we have, you're going to see much more collaborative robotics, right. So that's where we build our robotics systems to enable people to augment what people are
capable of. And we really believe in the philosophy of people and machines working together. How can we build a tool set that enables our employees to do their job not only more efficiently, but also with better safety in mind?
All right, So there's this robot arm called blue Jay. You just talked about it. You know, you guys are using this AI agent called the Iluna, and then you're also working with augmented reality glasses to be worn by drivers and delivery trucks in the field. There's like so much going on. Step back for a moment, because you guys have a lot of data. You look at what
you're doing. I'm just curious investors who are thinking about Amazon and what you are doing, how do they think about the long term, like ROI return on investment When it comes to the investment you guys make in robots. Is the goal about labor efficiency through put speed or is it margin expansion? Kind of tie across your full filment operations. What is it?
Yeah, well, definitely efficiency.
We think about efficiencies and how can we gain efficiency through all the chain of our fulfillment processes for sure, And you mentioned data and data is the fuel for AI systems. Data has allowed us to bring think of the body of being our robotics, but bring the mind to robotics, allowing it to be more adaptable, more fluid. You can almost think of this as the ability to pour our robotics systems into any size building, any scale of building, to amplify what our employees are already doing.
We want to give them an amazing tool set and we see that when we do that, we're more productive. Right when you do robotics, right when you do collab of robotics where you need both people and machines doing what they do best and they do different things better, that it allows you to be more productive. And when you're more productive, that allows you to invest more in people. We've skilled more than seven hundred thousand of our employees, which is a great stat And also in our robotics
we've expanded from the Kiba days. We've expanded from just a movement solution to now movement and mobility and sortation and storage and perception systems, packing systems that have really changed the game for our customers. That's a big deal to us.
But Ty, you know, well you need less workers, and I got to bring it up. You know, The Times had a story out They talked about interviews and a cash of internal strategy documents that they saw that it reveals that your execs think that the company's on the cusp of its next big workplace shift. I'm reading from the Times and replacing more than half a million jobs with robots, so you know, we know things change. I'm not in a horse and buggy anymore. I don't make
things piecemeal. I get it. I don't get tons of faxes and I don't get tons of pieces of physical mail. Thank God, things change. Having said that, is Amazon, do you guys believe that you're on the cusp of a workplace shift and that you won't need as many workers because the advancements in robotics.
Well, there's no doubt that things change. I mean, and we're actually really proud of that. And Amazon is that we avoid stasis at all costs. We change and we adapt and the nature of tasks definitely changed, There's no doubt about that. We are laser focused on efficiencies inside of our buildings. But when it comes to that article, that article was speculating ten years out right, that's a ten year speculation, and it's hard to say what's going
to happen in the next ten years. But I can tell you what happened in the last ten years, the last ten years, which is when we seriously invested in robotics, that we created hundreds of thousands of new jobs and new job types. And there's been no employer in the United States that has employed more people than Amazon ten years. I mean, that's and that's the power of efficiencies and building your robots in way that's applied and real that actually augments the human potent.
All Right, my brother Sam, I like a dog with a bone. So does that mean ten years out it could be less jobs or we just don't know, or you don't think that's the case, Well you have.
To think about it.
I mean there's jobs and there's tasks, right, so we of course we're changing the nature of tasks. Like I'm very bullish on eliminating every menial, mundane and repetitive job out there. Nobody wants to do that, so we were going to change those tasks one hundred percent, but we can again, as history has shown, we continue to create jobs right with the goal of two things. Can you have it all? Can you be more productive which means more efficiency, and can you also create a safer environment
for employees? And we're actually doing both. That's what history has shown. In the last ten years. We have create better than thirty percent reduction in our overall recordable injury rate over the last five years because of our robotics and also much more efficient. For example, our latest generation film at Center and shreport is twenty five percent more phishing the order.
So you can't have it all, but you have to build your robotics in the right way that empowers people.
We're speaking with Ty Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics. When we think about hiring for these one off or seasonal events like the holiday season or Amazon Prime Day, I'm wondering how you're putting pencil to paper right now and thinking about those numbers and to what extent automation has reduced Amazon's dependency on seasonal or hourly labor for holidays for Prime Day. What does that look like or what will that look like this year next year.
Well, it's the same philosophy of empowering employees, whether they're temporary or the full time employees with the world's best machines that help them do their job.
It's the same philosophy. I'm really proud of the.
Fact that this year we're going to from more than two hundred and fifty thousand temporary jobs for our employees to come in during the holiday season. Those are good paying jobs. I'm really happy about that, really pleased with that. And I'm really pleased with the work that are women than men have done in the robotics field, designing the pioneering these new physical AI systems that help them do their jobs better.
I got to say, one thing that I've been thinking a lot about is what's going on overseas, whether it's China, whether it's Japan. Bloomberg has done some reporting about service industries in Japan because they have a labor shortage that
they are leading increasingly on robotics. Have you been over there and looking at what they're doing, And I'm just curious if you're seeing some things that are pretty impressive, and that the US, as a creator of things or its role in the robotics industry, has to keep a watching what's going on in other countries.
Yeah.
I think it's easy, especially in robotics, to get distracted about what other people are doing. I think anybody can make a YouTube video. I think anybody can kind of pop in and overflate something. But if you come into our world, our world is a lot about application. Our world is the re reality.
All right.
We're talking with Ty Brady, chief technologist Robotics at Amazon, of course are our shot for that's the world of technology. We're talking a lot about technology. Stuff happens, and we're hoping we can get tie back. Just to finish up this conversation.
Maybe the robots are using all the Wi Fi.
Robots, Like, I don't like what it is.
That is a connectivity thing though.
Well it fees into the path right like you.
It's all question about resources.
Get charge These puppies can't just plug them in right if there?
I don't know we need recharging too.
Okay, Yeah, it's called food and sleep. Yeah, for Tim, it's called robot food, food and sleep. You know what I will say, do we have tie back, could we grab them for twenty seconds? Tie twenty seconds forgive us your final thoughts here.
Sorry about that, No, it's okay, let it go. I'm ready for you.
Okay, twenty seconds. Just final thoughts for our audience because we got to run.
So final thoughts.
Are is that robotics when done the right way, when you reframe your relationship with machines, you can enable more productivity, create greater efficiencies, and create a more safer environment for employees. And this collaborative mindset that we've had that we've done for the last ten years really does make the day.
Ty Brady over at Amazon, so appreciate it.
Stay with us.
More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five eastering. Listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
We love talking to mayers.
We do, we do.
We also love talking quantum computing, and there is some news in quantum computing today. Google running an algorithm modents Willow quantum computing chip that can be repeated on a similar platform and outperformed classical computers. We spoke a little bit about this with that love though earlier. The folks in Chattanoa, ten I see, I've been thinking a lot about quantum computing for years. The first commercially available quantum network in the US was established there back in twenty
twenty two. Back with us is Mayor Tim Kelly. He's an independent. He's the Mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Also with us as Janet Rayberg. She's the president and CEO elect of EPB, formerly known as the Electric Power Board of Chattooga, provides energy, internet, phone, and more in and around the Chattanooga area. They both join us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. We should note that last year Bloomberg Philanthropy's named Chatanooga one of twenty five cities selected for
its American Sustainable Cities Program. Bloomberg Philanthropies is founded and supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, and Chattanooga Sustainable Cities program is still ongoing. Chattanooga also part of the Bloomberg Harvard Leading City Procurement Reform program.
We're big Wilievers in full disclosure. Great to have both of you here in studio with Tim and me. Mayor Kelly, I just have to first ask you a broad question, because we do want to talk a lot about quantum computing and energy in general, because there's just so much going on the environment today. How is it in terms of running your city being a mayor in a political environment that's a tough one, an economic environment that may be tough.
Yeah, it's tough, but you know, running cities is an eminently practical exercise. And I will say, you know, our mayor's races are nonpartisan. They always have been, and I stayed.
In that lane. Again.
I mean, I'm not here to catalog my political beliefs. They're pretty confusing to most people anyway. I'd say, you know, Republicans think I'm a Democrat, and Democrats think I'm a Republican. I'm probably doing a pretty good job. So you know, I look, that has served me well in this environment, because again I believe, as does a lot of folks of Bloomberg, as do rather, but that cities are really the foundation of our economy. I swear ninety percent of
the GDP's generateds we're all innovations generated. So I'm focused on whatever is best for Chattanooga, so I can work and have managed to work with people on both sides of the aisle, and you know, in the best interest of my city.
Do you find yourself getting pulled into the social issues that seem to define our era right now, the stuff that does dominate cable news, whether you're talking about the right or the left.
Yeah, I mean I find myself, you know, I find people attempting to pull me into those But I think I've gotten pretty good at wrestling my way out of them and trying to just translate back into simple terms. You know, is this what's best for the city? You know, does it work or does it not work? I mean, sometimes you can't avoid those political issues. It's not as though,
you know, I don't have my own beliefs. But again, I think you, just as a mayor, have to take a thoroughly practical approach to what's going to work best for the city.
All right, So when you think about what's best for the city, let's talk about that. Because you are on the ground talking to people what they need, what you need to make sure you have a good economy, strong economy, not just today but in the future. That quantum computing that you made it back in twenty twenty two, tell us about kind of give us an update or for someone who didn't hear the conversation when you were last on with this kind of where you guys are with this.
So I'll give you the cliff notes version, which is that you know, we took advantage of a large federal low interest loan way back when during Clinton and Gore to put in a giant municipal fibre network, and that gave us the first and fastest municipal fiber network in the country. We had a lot of folks move in during COVID because you know, you can get one gig of symmetrical speed for sixty seven.
Bucks a month. Yeah, pretty great.
You can get twenty five gigs of speed at your house in Chattanooga. But it turns out that you can also do quantum computing on large loops of dark fiber, one particular type that uses photons and trapped ions, which is where ion Q began to become interested in Chattanooga.
So we opened and Janet can talk more about it.
The first commercially available quantum network, and it is starting to attract a lot of investment and attention.
So Janet, come on in here, because one thing that we're trying to understand is what the practical applications of quantum technology are. We spoke with ed Loo the cost of our Bloomberg Tech program a little earlier, and Carol agreed, I mean you thought healthcare first, he said, healthcare Also, this is one area of application, but it's still kind of the world where we're thinking about what this tech
can do, not necessarily seeing what it can do. Have we seen any material things be developed as a result of this technology and what you're doing in Chattanooga.
Yeah, So ian Q has been working on a lot of different type of application with different industry, and so we were interested because we're in an electric company and so we have all the data for them to help
us optimize our grid. So we're doing a partnership actually with Ionq, Nvidia, and Oakridge National Lab as a full way partnership to help do use hybrid computing until quantum computing can you get to where it needs to be to help us with some great optimization problem that we can't solve today.
In terms of energy demands tell us about that. That is like what you are seeing front and center. We know the AI conversation narrative has moved from the spend and chips and so on and so forth, like to basically, all right, do we have enough power to do all of this? And there is certainly a power scramble among the big hyper scalers. What are you seeing on that front?
Yeah, and I think that's a nationwide you know, issue with the energy problem.
And as AI gets.
Better as an energy problem, right, Yeah, I mean, as AI gets better and better, the more energy that it's going to need.
And so that's where quantum comes in.
Very important to the part of that solution is that quantum computer, once it gets to the phase that it needs to be, is it can solve things at a much faster rate, which uses less energy than a classical computer because it can do things in parallel versus sequential as a classical computer.
Today, Where do you get the energy that you sell to people in and Aroundchattanoga.
Yeah, so we buy it from TVA Tennessee Valley Authority, and so they generate the power and we distribute it to our customers.
How do they generate it?
They have a diverse mix of portfolio, from hydro, different types of renewables to natural gas, and so you know they're continuing to look at other options.
Do you see that mixed?
Go ahead, now, I'm just going to say they're also very much on the front foot in terms of advanced new Do you.
See that mix? This is either of you.
Do you see that mixed changing and focusing less unrenewables more on nuclear as a result of the changes out of Washington.
I think you're going to see that, you know, and again, regardless of your political affiliation, if you just kind of look at.
The math, there's no way around nuclear, right.
I do think they are giving us or EPB more latitude to generate some of our own power because of the anticipated demands. And I think we still have a lot of headway on solar, So I mean, I think we'll contain, and we've got a lot of things we can do with hydro. We're going to actually start using biogas in our wastewater treatment plant to generate electricity. So we're looking at any in all ways that we can generate.
Because my understanding when we talk about SMR as the small modular reactors it's ten fifteen.
Will Wade reminds us who covers this here at Bloomberg News, that we are not there right now, it's.
A while, we're not, but we have a pretty significant nuclear footprint with TVA already in the times.
So what would you tell people who are still nervous when it comes to the nuclear footprint that you guys have. You know what, you know, fine, people do it, okay, do it across the country or do it in another country. But you know the feeling here.
I mean, I grew up in the next to a nuclear power planet. I'm fine, right, I'm a little weird.
But what would you say about that?
I mean, the technology has come a long long way. Yeah, that's what I would say. Man, I'd say, go do your research, do your homework. They're not.
I mean, that's why we have these discussions, That's why we have the fears. But but there's just not absolute fusion. I will say the state in the University of Tennessee is also working very very hard on fusion technology.
Absent that breakthrough, there's really not.
That's what I'm waiting for.
When we're talking about quantum today and we're talking about Google, we're talking about Silicon Valley. How do you get people to think about Chattanooga, Tennessee and not Silicon Valley, not New York City, not Austin, Texas when they're thinking about where they want to live to have a job in technology.
Coming on Bloomberg is it's a great first step.
No.
I mean, look, we talked about this all the time.
It's a it's a mid size southern city with kind of a funny name, and there's a bit of cognitive dissonance there. So you know, look, we are out telling the story. I mean, I was just in Detroit last week at a sustainable mobility conference. We were at the Quantum World Congress. I mean, at some point it's you know, the evidence is mounting.
We are it's not just smoke. We are doing the work and it's working. Is it?
Is it?
If you build it, they will come mentality. I think, so have they come?
Yes, they have come.
I mean again, we had you know, we now have independent verification that you know, ten twelve thousand people moved to Chattanooga during the pandemic very you know, degree talented people that could work remotely. And I think again, our job, my job is mayor, is to help break that glass ceiling so that we have the level of business investment and again can build up our academic horsepower to be able to sustain those knowledge economy jobs.
Jenna, you know, when we think about quantum computing, we spend so much time to talking about you know, large language models and generative AI and kind of where that's going agentic AI. You just talked about the power or aspect are the use of less power when it comes to quantum computing. But I mean, should our conversation be shifting in terms of what we are having for an investing audience when we talk just so much about AI generally versus quantum.
Well, I think that with quantum computer, when it gets to you know, the level it needs to be, you can team it up with AI and get even more powerful algorithm that comes out of it to be able to solve more complex problems. So I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's going to be a combined of you know, how do you combine that and use less energy and be able to build algorithm more efficiently.
So help me, because when we talk about the data center build out, so does that go hand in hand with the build out of quantum computing is that part of it?
So right now, it's you know, the we're building a quantum computer to kind of learn more and be able to help accelerate and advance that technology with companies like ion Q, and I think once it gets to where it needs to be, then well we can team it up with AI.
Okay, yeah, yeah, and many of the implications with quantum asking basic quest because I feel like we spend so much time talking about the AI, but this is something that.
Increasingly is coming into the dialogue.
Yeah.
Now, I'm just going to say the logistics is a huge vertical and chatt near go as well. And I think the implications for quantum for logistics have huge implications for lower power demand and a lower carbon footprint, right because you're going to waste a lot less time getting stuff from A to B.
Right with root optimization we're going to have to do because we talk about like the power drag or the power demand and the cost. Mayor Kelly, I'd be remiss not to ask you you are trying to build a city where everyone has an opportunity to thrive and prosper We talk so much about the case shaped economy. There's a lot of people who aren't thriving and prospering in this environment. Thirty five seconds. What's a message to send to everybody.
Well, we are working very hard to reform our workforce fillment system so that we so we don't leave folks behind. And I think we have some significant opportunities to do that, and we are in the mist to doing that. Again, it's tough out there, yeah, and I think it's going to fall more to the state government into philanthropy frankly, to kind of take up the slack in the meantime.
But I mean, we have to play the long game.
And the long game is we need some significant change to the way that we do education workforce development in this country so that we don't leave people behind.
Yeah.
I just feel like in terms of education, we're starting to think about that. Yeah, come back soon. I'd love to kind of continue this conversation if we may. Mayor Tim Kelly of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Janet Raeberg, she's the President's CEO Elective EP be joining us right here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio.
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