August 13, 2025 • 13 mins
Green firms in the US have found something of a lifeline in artificial intelligence after being bogged down by high interest rates, shrinking funding and, more recently, President Donald Trump’s sharp rollback of support. Clean technology companies that have inked deals to support data centers have seen their stocks soar this year, outperforming the S&P 500. Nuclear power startup Oklo Inc.’s shares are up nearly 275% year-to-date while the stock price of fuel cell provider Bloom Energy Corp. has risen more than 80% as of Tuesday's US market close. Energy storage and clean power snagged the most public and private investment among climate tech sectors last quarter, according to BloombergNEF.
Dr. KR Sridhar, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Bloom Energy, discusses his company's place in the green technology landscape as well as its third straight quarter of record revenue and profits, which were reported in its most recent earnings on July 31. Dr. Sridhar speaks with Carol Massar and David Gura on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
One thing we like to watch is what's going on
in the green space. Green firms, by the way, in
the US have found something of a lifeline in artificial
intelligence after being bogged down by high interest rates, shrinking
funding and more recently President trump sharp rollback of support,
and our own Bloomberg New Energy Finance team. They have
recently pointed out that clean tech companies that have INK
(00:35):
deals to support data centers have seen their stocks sore
this year, outperforming the S and P five hundred, and
that includes the share price of our next guest. We're
talking about fuel sale provider bloom Energy. It is up
seventy six percent year to date today trading at an
all time high, rising another eight point six percent. Jon't
ne us to talk about the impact of AI and
just the business overall. Is doctor K. R. Schreider, Founder, chairman,
(00:58):
and chief executive officer of Blue Energy. It's a nine
and a half billion dollar market cap company. By the way,
he was a former advisor to NASA and so much more.
He joins us from San Jose. We could go on
and on about your background, but we really want to
talk to you. Good to have you here, it's been
a while. Talk to us about how AI is specifically
impacting and driving growth at your business.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Carol, it is such a pleasure to join you.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
So this is an amazing time yea in human history
where we have not seen the need for power growth
anywhere close to what we're seeing today. Let me put
it in perspective, the amount of power that the big
hyperscalers are saying they need between now and twenty thirty
(01:43):
is equal to all the power every single family home
in the US put together would need about eighty five
million single family homes give or day.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
All the power that they use is going to be needed.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
In addition to the power we have today to just
power the AI data service. That's how large this opportunity is.
And very clearly the old model of centralized power plants
with transmission distribution simply cannot meet that demand.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
In a timely fashion.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
That is the opportunity, and Bloom was purpose built to
provide on site power for the digital revolution, and we
are so happy to be in the right place at
the right time.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, help us understand how the company works, and you
mentioned that on site power, so what that looks like.
Of course, there's been so much conversation recent months about
perhaps the need to invest more in nuclear power or
fortify the grid, bring more power plants online. How do
you see your company as maybe not a substitution for that,
but a compliment to the kind of growth and develop
(02:49):
we're likely to see here in the power grid going forward.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
I think we're going to need all forms of power
in very large quantities going forward to meet our ratios, you.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Know, like energy needs.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
However, in the short term, if you take five to
ten years, natural gas to electricity is going to be
the single largest contributor to this additionality what Bloom does.
It takes natural gas without burning it, without combustin. We
extract the chemical energy in it using a fuel cell
(03:22):
and make electricity at the highest efficiency without air pollution,
without noise in our generators because they have quiet, solid
state and a very high reliability. For those reasons, if
you are in a neighborhood that is going to have
a data center, we are your best choice because we
(03:45):
don't pollute your air, we don't use water and we
don't make any noise as we.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Generate this reliable power, so you.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Can have the economic advantage that a data center brings
to the local community. At the same time, you're not
compromising on your health.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So one thing I want to ask you, actually, our
Will Wade does who really covers this space, and we
were talking about you coming on and he said, well,
wait a minute, let's talk about these fuel seals for
data centers. Can fuel cells really work for this? What
evidence have you guys seen that it does really work?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
So, yeah, that's a great question. And this is really
smart dude.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I'm just going to put it out there. He's amazing.
But anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Look, the issue is we are progressing so fast in
our technology at ai speed that some people that have
looked at fuel sALS ten years ago and have that
notion of who we are don't understand where we are
today as a company. We already are powering more than
half a gigawat worth of data center because our total
(04:56):
installed capacity for data centers is more than half a gigawat.
So we're not a concept, we are not a PowerPoint.
We're actually producing power for these data centers and this
year alone, we have increased our capacity to one gigaw
a year, and we announced in our earnings call that
by end of next year we can.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Do two gigawards a year.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
That's two nuclear power plants worth of power coming out
of our factory next year. And you know how long
it takes to build a nuclear power plant and actually
commission it. So we are no longer a concept. We
are a mature technology that is affordable and can compete
with other technologies that don't have as good attributes as
(05:39):
we do.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Street.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I wonder if you could talk a bit about your
business model. I know that you've announced deals with with
other companies, most recently with Oracle, of course, the company
that I know is building investing a lot in its
data center infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Could you.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Cares for you just give us a sense here sort
of of what those deals look like, what that deal
with like in particular.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Yeah, David, So our customers.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Here's what happens.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Once we sign a deal with the customer, they either
buy the capital equipment from us, and then they also
sign up for a service contract. It's one hundred percent
attached rate because we run those units for them and
we maintain that and we offer them the promise guarantee
of performance. Now, if they don't buy the equipment as cappex,
(06:30):
we create a special purpose vehicle using financing and we
simply sell them power just like the utility would, except
this is on site and highly reliable and clean. So
either way, when we create a special purpose vehicle, that
financial investor in that vehicle gives us the upfront money
for our capital, and we also have an annuity revenue
(06:53):
coming out of service. So we have two streams of
revenue if you want to think about it. Installed capital
equipment that gets paid to us when we ship the equipment,
a continuous service anuality over the tenure of the contract.
That's how we make our money, irrespective of whether the
(07:14):
customer actually buys the capital equipment or a third party
buys the capital equipment and then charges the monthly rate
from the customer.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Heay, carey, I'm curious. I'm looking at one of my
favorite functions on the BLOOMBERGTS and supply chain function, and
I'm looking at your customers. Your biggest is I think
American Electric Power Company, but I'm also looking at Alphabet Microsoft.
You know, yep, sound familiar. These are some of the
hyperscalers tell me how they are amping up their business
because they're the ones who are doing the massive, massive
(07:46):
AI spend, But it looks like they're a very small
part of your business. I'm just curious about what's the
conversations you're having with them. Are they ramping up to
do more with you? That would be very telling.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yes, the answer to your question is very simple.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
In the past, these hyperscalers would spend all their capital
equipment just on building the data centers and they could
simply pick up the phone and call the utility company
and they would provide the power. No longer is that
a reality because the utility does not have the amounts
of power that these hyperscalers need. So now electricity power,
(08:27):
which is what ultimately the data center needs to monetize
the data center, is a supply chain that comes from
the common good called the utility. So they have to
own that supply chain or they are to procure from
that supply chain. We are very much an integral part
of that supply chain, and we are having conversations with
all the hyperscalers today, and you've seen the announcement aetorical
(08:51):
expect to see similar things coming soon. Our American Electric
Power contract was actually for AWS, which is another high
for Scaler.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I wonder if you could situate your company and this
industry in the moment that we're in. So we're coming
out of an administration that was doing a lot to
support or encourage the adoption of alternative energy. It's way
to say this administration that's not doing that, there's much
less impulse to do that going forward. Here what do
you see here as the ideal role of government in
(09:24):
encouraging the adoption of technologies like yours? In other words,
if you'd like to see fuel cell technology take off
be more widely adopted, what is the role of government
in making that happen if any.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
I think a simple role that they can play going
forward is the US government, between the various government functions,
the military, and the intelligence, is the largest procurer of electricity.
To be able to purchase electricity from technologies that are
made in America. We are made in America technology. No
(09:58):
other country in the world has the technology that we have.
So they should embrace us, and they should give us
an opportunity to serve the US government, the US military,
and US intelligence and make US a really strong country.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Well there, I was also curious about. And I'm looking
at your market cap it's almost about nine point six
billion dollars, and it is this excitement over AI. You know,
there's all the money that's being spent care on the buildout,
and I get that, but I'm just curious. And then
there's going to be the maintenance and we might not
need as many workers. And you know, we're all trying
(10:33):
to get our head about around whether you know, the
boom the bust part of maybe AI after the build out,
what is the business for you? Is it maintenance? Is
it replacement values? I'm just curious.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Oh, thank you for asking that question, Carol. The buildout
is just a tip of the iceberg. Why would these
large hyperscalers spend close to a trillion dollars worth of
capex just this year alone. If all that they're going
to do is that build out. That's the training data centers.
(11:07):
The inference data centers will be at least an order
of magnitude larger than these training data centers, which are
the foundation building blocks every factory, every bank, every law firm.
They're going to have inference data centers close to the edge,
and these edge data centers are going to be located
(11:27):
where you all live, where people are, where equipment is,
and in those congested cities, getting the additional power needed
ten to twenty megawats in every edge data center, which
is an inference data center.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
We are ideally suited not just for the.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Large data centers, but for these edge data centers because
we are non polluting, we're quiet, we're reliable, and we
can provide it on site very quickly. So we're super
excited about what we think is a really secular phenomenon
and that's happening here that's going to last for a
very long time to come. This is not just a
(12:05):
build and bust cycle at all as far.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
As we see.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So when you say a long time, are you saying
decades or.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I'm just going at least a couple of decades. At
least a couple of decades.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
All right, Good to know. We'll stay in Touch'd love
to hear because you certainly have a front row seat
in terms of this spend and what is going on.
Certainly all the power that's needed, it's just kind of astounding.
Doctor Kerr Schweder. He is founder, chairman and chief executive
officer of bloom Energy. The stock David up another nine
percent in today's session, and it's really been on a
tear this year, up about eighty four percent.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So so interesting to talk about these companies because we
focus so much on the AI providers, So as we're
making these chatbots and all the developments there, but as
we were just discussing the apparatus that you need to
make all of that work so huge, so sprawling, and
I'm just fascinating every time I kind of learn what
goes into that making all of this stuff run right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Right, We just hear about that kind of the big hyperskeleton,
and there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Mm hmm
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
One thing we like to watch is what's going on
in the green space. Green firms, by the way, in
the US have found something of a lifeline in artificial
intelligence after being bogged down by high interest rates, shrinking
funding and more recently President trump sharp rollback of support,
and our own Bloomberg New Energy Finance team. They have
recently pointed out that clean tech companies that have INK
(00:35):
deals to support data centers have seen their stocks sore
this year, outperforming the S and P five hundred, and
that includes the share price of our next guest. We're
talking about fuel sale provider bloom Energy. It is up
seventy six percent year to date today trading at an
all time high, rising another eight point six percent. Jon't
ne us to talk about the impact of AI and
just the business overall. Is doctor K. R. Schreider, Founder, chairman,
(00:58):
and chief executive officer of Blue Energy. It's a nine
and a half billion dollar market cap company. By the way,
he was a former advisor to NASA and so much more.
He joins us from San Jose. We could go on
and on about your background, but we really want to
talk to you. Good to have you here, it's been
a while. Talk to us about how AI is specifically
impacting and driving growth at your business.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Carol, it is such a pleasure to join you.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
So this is an amazing time yea in human history
where we have not seen the need for power growth
anywhere close to what we're seeing today. Let me put
it in perspective, the amount of power that the big
hyperscalers are saying they need between now and twenty thirty
(01:43):
is equal to all the power every single family home
in the US put together would need about eighty five
million single family homes give or day.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
All the power that they use is going to be needed.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
In addition to the power we have today to just
power the AI data service. That's how large this opportunity is.
And very clearly the old model of centralized power plants
with transmission distribution simply cannot meet that demand.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
In a timely fashion.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
That is the opportunity, and Bloom was purpose built to
provide on site power for the digital revolution, and we
are so happy to be in the right place at
the right time.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, help us understand how the company works, and you
mentioned that on site power, so what that looks like.
Of course, there's been so much conversation recent months about
perhaps the need to invest more in nuclear power or
fortify the grid, bring more power plants online. How do
you see your company as maybe not a substitution for that,
but a compliment to the kind of growth and develop
(02:49):
we're likely to see here in the power grid going forward.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
I think we're going to need all forms of power
in very large quantities going forward to meet our ratios, you.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Know, like energy needs.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
However, in the short term, if you take five to
ten years, natural gas to electricity is going to be
the single largest contributor to this additionality what Bloom does.
It takes natural gas without burning it, without combustin. We
extract the chemical energy in it using a fuel cell
(03:22):
and make electricity at the highest efficiency without air pollution,
without noise in our generators because they have quiet, solid
state and a very high reliability. For those reasons, if
you are in a neighborhood that is going to have
a data center, we are your best choice because we
(03:45):
don't pollute your air, we don't use water and we
don't make any noise as we.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Generate this reliable power, so you.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Can have the economic advantage that a data center brings
to the local community. At the same time, you're not
compromising on your health.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So one thing I want to ask you, actually, our
Will Wade does who really covers this space, and we
were talking about you coming on and he said, well,
wait a minute, let's talk about these fuel seals for
data centers. Can fuel cells really work for this? What
evidence have you guys seen that it does really work?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
So, yeah, that's a great question. And this is really
smart dude.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I'm just going to put it out there. He's amazing.
But anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Look, the issue is we are progressing so fast in
our technology at ai speed that some people that have
looked at fuel sALS ten years ago and have that
notion of who we are don't understand where we are
today as a company. We already are powering more than
half a gigawat worth of data center because our total
(04:56):
installed capacity for data centers is more than half a gigawat.
So we're not a concept, we are not a PowerPoint.
We're actually producing power for these data centers and this
year alone, we have increased our capacity to one gigaw
a year, and we announced in our earnings call that
by end of next year we can.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Do two gigawards a year.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
That's two nuclear power plants worth of power coming out
of our factory next year. And you know how long
it takes to build a nuclear power plant and actually
commission it. So we are no longer a concept. We
are a mature technology that is affordable and can compete
with other technologies that don't have as good attributes as
(05:39):
we do.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Street.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I wonder if you could talk a bit about your
business model. I know that you've announced deals with with
other companies, most recently with Oracle, of course, the company
that I know is building investing a lot in its
data center infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Could you.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Cares for you just give us a sense here sort
of of what those deals look like, what that deal
with like in particular.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Yeah, David, So our customers.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Here's what happens.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Once we sign a deal with the customer, they either
buy the capital equipment from us, and then they also
sign up for a service contract. It's one hundred percent
attached rate because we run those units for them and
we maintain that and we offer them the promise guarantee
of performance. Now, if they don't buy the equipment as cappex,
(06:30):
we create a special purpose vehicle using financing and we
simply sell them power just like the utility would, except
this is on site and highly reliable and clean. So
either way, when we create a special purpose vehicle, that
financial investor in that vehicle gives us the upfront money
for our capital, and we also have an annuity revenue
(06:53):
coming out of service. So we have two streams of
revenue if you want to think about it. Installed capital
equipment that gets paid to us when we ship the equipment,
a continuous service anuality over the tenure of the contract.
That's how we make our money, irrespective of whether the
(07:14):
customer actually buys the capital equipment or a third party
buys the capital equipment and then charges the monthly rate
from the customer.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Heay, carey, I'm curious. I'm looking at one of my
favorite functions on the BLOOMBERGTS and supply chain function, and
I'm looking at your customers. Your biggest is I think
American Electric Power Company, but I'm also looking at Alphabet Microsoft.
You know, yep, sound familiar. These are some of the
hyperscalers tell me how they are amping up their business
because they're the ones who are doing the massive, massive
(07:46):
AI spend, But it looks like they're a very small
part of your business. I'm just curious about what's the
conversations you're having with them. Are they ramping up to
do more with you? That would be very telling.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yes, the answer to your question is very simple.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
In the past, these hyperscalers would spend all their capital
equipment just on building the data centers and they could
simply pick up the phone and call the utility company
and they would provide the power. No longer is that
a reality because the utility does not have the amounts
of power that these hyperscalers need. So now electricity power,
(08:27):
which is what ultimately the data center needs to monetize
the data center, is a supply chain that comes from
the common good called the utility. So they have to
own that supply chain or they are to procure from
that supply chain. We are very much an integral part
of that supply chain, and we are having conversations with
all the hyperscalers today, and you've seen the announcement aetorical
(08:51):
expect to see similar things coming soon. Our American Electric
Power contract was actually for AWS, which is another high
for Scaler.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I wonder if you could situate your company and this
industry in the moment that we're in. So we're coming
out of an administration that was doing a lot to
support or encourage the adoption of alternative energy. It's way
to say this administration that's not doing that, there's much
less impulse to do that going forward. Here what do
you see here as the ideal role of government in
(09:24):
encouraging the adoption of technologies like yours? In other words,
if you'd like to see fuel cell technology take off
be more widely adopted, what is the role of government
in making that happen if any.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
I think a simple role that they can play going
forward is the US government, between the various government functions,
the military, and the intelligence, is the largest procurer of electricity.
To be able to purchase electricity from technologies that are
made in America. We are made in America technology. No
(09:58):
other country in the world has the technology that we have.
So they should embrace us, and they should give us
an opportunity to serve the US government, the US military,
and US intelligence and make US a really strong country.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Well there, I was also curious about. And I'm looking
at your market cap it's almost about nine point six
billion dollars, and it is this excitement over AI. You know,
there's all the money that's being spent care on the buildout,
and I get that, but I'm just curious. And then
there's going to be the maintenance and we might not
need as many workers. And you know, we're all trying
(10:33):
to get our head about around whether you know, the
boom the bust part of maybe AI after the build out,
what is the business for you? Is it maintenance? Is
it replacement values? I'm just curious.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Oh, thank you for asking that question, Carol. The buildout
is just a tip of the iceberg. Why would these
large hyperscalers spend close to a trillion dollars worth of
capex just this year alone. If all that they're going
to do is that build out. That's the training data centers.
(11:07):
The inference data centers will be at least an order
of magnitude larger than these training data centers, which are
the foundation building blocks every factory, every bank, every law firm.
They're going to have inference data centers close to the edge,
and these edge data centers are going to be located
(11:27):
where you all live, where people are, where equipment is,
and in those congested cities, getting the additional power needed
ten to twenty megawats in every edge data center, which
is an inference data center.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
We are ideally suited not just for the.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Large data centers, but for these edge data centers because
we are non polluting, we're quiet, we're reliable, and we
can provide it on site very quickly. So we're super
excited about what we think is a really secular phenomenon
and that's happening here that's going to last for a
very long time to come. This is not just a
(12:05):
build and bust cycle at all as far.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
As we see.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So when you say a long time, are you saying
decades or.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I'm just going at least a couple of decades. At
least a couple of decades.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
All right, Good to know. We'll stay in Touch'd love
to hear because you certainly have a front row seat
in terms of this spend and what is going on.
Certainly all the power that's needed, it's just kind of astounding.
Doctor Kerr Schweder. He is founder, chairman and chief executive
officer of bloom Energy. The stock David up another nine
percent in today's session, and it's really been on a
tear this year, up about eighty four percent.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So so interesting to talk about these companies because we
focus so much on the AI providers, So as we're
making these chatbots and all the developments there, but as
we were just discussing the apparatus that you need to
make all of that work so huge, so sprawling, and
I'm just fascinating every time I kind of learn what
goes into that making all of this stuff run right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Right, We just hear about that kind of the big hyperskeleton,
and there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Mm hmm
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!