Kevin D Johnson

We were honored to have our video selected as the winner at this year’s Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) Symposium, hosted by the California Energy Commission. The event brought together clean energy leaders, policymakers, and innovators to discuss how technology, equity, and affordability will shape California’s decarbonized future. GoPowerEV's work was featured as part of the state’s leading public-interest innovations, accelerating our transition to a smarter, more resilient grid. Especially in multifamily housing, where the next wave of EV adoption will happen. Watch the video below to see how we’re making equitable electrification real. #EPICSymposium

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Silicon Valley’s AI Data Centers Sit Idle Amid Severe Power Grid Bottlenecks Power-Hungry Facilities Ready—But Grid Isn’t Two state-of-the-art data centers in Santa Clara—Digital Realty’s 48MW SJC37 and Stack Infrastructure’s 48MW SVY02A—are completed but sit unused. Despite their readiness to support AI-intensive computing, both remain unpowered due to electricity shortfalls. Together, they represent nearly 100 megawatts of idle capacity—a stark illustration of infrastructure lag in the AI era. Key Facility and Grid Challenges • Digital Realty’s SJC37: – 430,000 sq. ft. across four stories, designed for 48MW of critical load. – Remains offline with no energization timeline. • Stack Infrastructure’s SVY02A: – Includes 8 data halls and its own substation. – Also designed for 48MW, but power delivery is on hold. • Santa Clara’s utility, Silicon Valley Power (SVP): – Managing 57 data centers (active or in-progress). – Investing $450M in grid upgrades, expected by 2028. – Power delivery is being sequenced as substations and transmission lines come online. National Trend of Grid Strain • Northern Virginia, Pacific Northwest, Southeast U.S.: – Facing 2–5 year delays for data center connections. – Microsoft has acknowledged idle GPUs due to power shortages. • AI infrastructure now demands hundreds of megawatts per cluster—overwhelming current grid capacity timelines. Why It Matters The bottleneck in energy availability isn’t just a local hiccup—it reflects a systemic lag between digital infrastructure growth and utility modernization. While AI builders race ahead with new compute demands, local grids are stuck in regulatory and construction bottlenecks. These idle sites—mere minutes from Nvidia’s HQ—underscore that even global tech giants can’t outpace the grid. The risk: AI innovation stalls not from lack of chips, but from lack of electricity. I share daily insights with 33,000+ followers and 11,000+ professional contacts across defense, tech, and policy. If this topic resonates, I invite you to connect and continue the conversation. Keith King https://lnkd.in/gHPvUttw

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I had the opportunity to speak at the SimOps Workshop in Los Gatos, a gathering of hardware engineers, simulation experts, high performance computing practitioners who are shaping the future of simulation operations. 💡 One clear takeaway: engineers now want to do much more with their simulation data. What used to end at verification is evolving into continuous optimization and insight generation. This shift is creating new best practices in data preparation, automation, and analytics, and the SimOps community will continue to define these along with the KPIs that measure real progress. Grateful to everyone who contributed their perspectives and energy. The discussions and feedback reaffirmed that SimOps isn’t just a framework. It’s becoming a movement. #SimOps #EngineeringData #Simulation #Optimization #DataPrep #AI #DigitalEngineering

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Sacramento Joins the "Tech Triangle" including San Francisco • Sacramento • San Jose with new $50M commitment from Meta! Historic news for California’s Capital Region — Sacramento is now stepping into its role as a technology and innovation hub alongside Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. Meta has just committed $50 million to support a transformative downtown California State University-Sacramento campus project, helping convert under-utilized state buildings on Capitol Mall into a vibrant mixed-use destination that will include: = Affordable student and faculty housing = A new School of Public Affairs = Room for cutting-edge academic programs and an AI Center = Cultural and community spaces contributing to downtown revitalization This landmark investment isn’t just about construction — it’s about AI innovation, investment, equity, workforce development, and economic revitalization. It positions Sacramento as a place where talent is cultivated and retained, not just trained and exported. 📍 Read more here: Meta pledges $50M to help build a new Sacramento State campus downtown — CBS Sacramento: https://lnkd.in/gkJNHZy9 This partnership between Meta, Sacramento State, and state leadership signals a new chapter for Sacramento’s role in the technology ecosystem — bridging academic excellence, innovation, and community prosperity. #Sacramento #Innovation #HigherEd #TechEcosystem #DowntownRevitalization #Meta #SacState #AI #EconomicGrowth Eric Ball, Saurabh Suri, Saurabh Ranjan, Vikas Datt, Jennifer Baker Khan, John Hooker, Aaron Mondell Anderson, Patrick Bumpus, Yatish Mishra, Sean Mishra, Dan Wadhwani, Brad Squires, Mihran Berejikian, Jackson Crawford, Jason A. Vita, Peyton Crawford

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As AI reshapes industries and demand for power efficient computing, connectivity and intelligence increases, the need for secure, scalable, and onshore semiconductor manufacturing has never been greater. That’s why Qualcomm is pleased to see GlobalFoundries’ $16B investment in U.S. chip production. This is about building a resilient semiconductor supply chain for the next era of innovation—and doing it in a way that strengthens our economy and national competitiveness. https://lnkd.in/g5riGitq

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We are excited to be among the select companies invited to the Southern California Edison (SCE) Grid Digitization Summit. From day one, we have been laying the foundation for a truly horizontal infrastructure company at the forefront of embedding controlled AI in some of the most critical paths. An opportunity to collaborate on America’s grid resilience, turning data and models into actionable frameworks that empower field and technical teams to deliver reliable, clean energy, is paramount. Our foundational platform, Lemma, is designed to cut through the complexity of legacy systems, transitioning infrastructure from static, disjointed assets to dynamic, autonomous systems. We believe that securing our nation's future requires a new and aggressive but very intentional technological push, one that demands we build secure, AI-native physical infrastructure from the ground up. #CriticalAI #ControlledAI #AIinfrastructure  #TechforCleanEnergy

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Educators are eager to hear from industry about how to address the engineering skills gap. Is your business joining the conversation? For Dean Ian Williamson of the University of California, Irvine’s (UCI) Paul Merage School of Business, industry and academia need to do more than partner together: They need to co-design the curriculum. “We have expertise around how to create learning environments. However, we’re not always clear on what exactly we should be training, and we may not always have access to the latest tools either." That’s why Siemens and the UCI School of Business have worked together to offer students the opportunity to complete consulting projects exploring commercialization of the digital twin. “Our students get to see the cutting-edge opportunities associated with virtual reality, but they also are doing it in a way that is similar to what they would do in their workplace.” Read the blog for more of Dean Williamson’s exciting proposals for addressing the engineering skills gap: https://sie.ag/7Qa22T #Academic

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