Senior Legal Counsel, Crusoe Energy Systems

The company started out by putting wasted energy to work. Originally known as Crusoe Energy, it captured natural gas that would otherwise be burned off ("flared") at remote oil sites and used it to power modular data centres. Today, Crusoe has evolved into a major player in AI infrastructure, designing and operating large-scale data centres near renewable or stranded energy sources. It's now one of a handful of "neocloud" companies (next-generation cloud providers focused on flexible, efficient computing for AI workloads). And its facilities are helping tech giants like OpenAI handle the massive computing requirements of training advanced AI models.

Recently, Crusoe has attracted some huge investor attention, tripling its valuation to over $10B and raising $1.4B in its latest funding round. It's building OpenAI's first major US data centre campus and even experimenting with bold new frontiers. In partnership with Starcloud, Crusoe plans to deploy the world's first space-based cloud computing infrastructure, powered by solar energy and orbiting the Earth by 2027. If successful, this could redefine how and where computing happens, opening up a cleaner, virtually limitless source of energy for AI's next generation.