Satya Nadella at Davos and the geopolitics behind AI “token factories” скачать в хорошем качестве

Satya Nadella at Davos and the geopolitics behind AI “token factories”

Article link: https://open.substack.com/pub/johanos... Satya Nadella’s Microsoft Davos talk reframes AI as geopolitics, not just technology. His “token factories” metaphor points to the real foundations of AI capability: chips, data centres, networks, and above all electricity. As AI becomes embedded in productivity, education, and public services, access to cheap, reliable “tokens per dollar per watt” becomes a national competitiveness issue. Countries that can build and power AI infrastructure will compound advantages, while those that can’t will increasingly rent intelligence from abroad, inheriting someone else’s pricing, rules, and strategic leverage. For South Africa, the article argues this is an urgent wake-up call. AI strategy cannot be limited to ethics statements or pilot projects; it must include energy resilience, infrastructure policy, investment pathways, and widespread skilling so benefits don’t concentrate in a narrow elite. Nadella’s warning about “social permission” matters too: societies will not tolerate scarce energy being burned on AI unless the outcomes are tangible and widely felt, like better healthcare, education, and public services. The takeaway is practical: stabilise energy, modernise digital infrastructure, build job-relevant AI skills, and insist that AI earns trust through measurable outcomes.