How AI is Reaching the Most Extreme Parts of the World

[00:00] Armada is the hyperscaler for the edge. We are taking the most powerful AI models and we're moving them to the edge faster, better, cheaper and more flexibly than anybody else. And we do that with modular AI factories that can be deployed literally anywhere in the world. [00:13] 70% of the world does not have access to AI. And so the mission of Armada is to [00:17] bridge the digital [00:18] to fill that gap. We started the company working with SpaceX. We are the first mover when it comes to the infrastructure and that partnership works really well because we complement the connectivity with the infrastructure and the AI. We announced recently a partnership with Skydio. We announced another one with OpenAI, taking their models to the edge for the first time. So partnerships are a key part of our strategy. We were the first modular data center ever to be deployed in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia with Aramco, working with Microsoft. In a few years what's [00:48] on the Chinese AI stack. And I don't wanna live in a world where, you know, the world's running on the Chinese AI stack, causing all that information to go back to China. Data centers in space is coming and it makes sense. SpaceX is talking about with Starship going to the moon, you're going to need compute, especially as you start to think about Optimus robots building, you know, bases on the moon. So you're gonna see data centers in space and I'm sure we're definitely gonna be a part of it.

[01:18] Dan Wright, welcome to Sorcery. Great to be here. Thanks Molly. [01:23] Well, we're at the Reagan National Library. [01:25] Here we are. Is this your first time here? No, this is actually probably my fifth time, fifth straight year at RNDF. Okay, and what's it like? This is my first time. It is always crazy, but it's... [01:38] inspiring you hear from some of the top minds in the dow and some of the top entrepreneurs and it's a great place to meet a lot of people in a very short amount of time just over really a day and a [01:49] tons and tons of people that are working on critical problems for the country. I know I was walking in, ran into Palmer Luckey, saw, you know, this like huge event, huge breakfast right under Air Force One. It's pretty special. So for people that don't know what Armada is, [02:06] Obviously, I know we've had many interviews together. What is Armada? So Armada is the hyperscaler for the edge. We are taking the most powerful AI models and we're moving them to the edge. [02:16] faster, better, cheaper, and more flexibly than anybody else. And we do that with modular AI factories that can be deployed literally anywhere in the world. [02:25] AI factories have become a hot topic. It's a trillion dollar question now with AI spend, [02:31] What do you think the state of the market is for AI infrastructure? I mean, we are going through a generational boom with AI. We're seeing that with these big AI labs, the foundation model companies. To this point, that's really impacted consumers with ChatGPT and Grok and now knowledge workers. But what we're really seeing now at Armada is that those really powerful models are starting to be applied to operations on the ground at the edge.

[03:01] is that these models, which are doing wonders for consumers and for knowledge workers, they need to be put in the hands of the people who really need them when you have to make split second decisions that sometimes impact life and death or billions of dollars. [03:14] And how does [03:16] your view of modular, on-demand, [03:20] AI data centers differ from these huge large scale data centers. [03:25] So when you think about the huge, large data centers, that's sort of like an extension of what we've been doing, the cloud, right? To this point, we've had these big hyperscale data centers. Today, they cover about 30% of the world. [03:37] That means 70% of the world does not have access to AI. And so the mission of Armada is to bridge the digital divide and fill that gap. We're going to continue to need these big hyperscale data centers for the cloud and extending that. But those take a long time. It's construction. It's permitting. It's years. [03:54] There's supply chain issues, there's all sorts of issues. [03:56] With us, what is really nice is rather than taking years, you can put these anywhere in a matter of a small number of months. And they're mobile. And so if needs change, you can move them around. And so where we see our role is to rapidly extend the benefit of all these models that have been trained in the cloud, because the cloud is going to continue to be really important, but then allowing them to reach these locations that have never been able to be reached before

[04:26] flexibly. [04:27] than any other way. - So you've raised over $200 million to date. [04:32] You [04:34] have pretty much ascended quite quickly with your partnerships and strategic investors. [04:40] Who are some of the people that you work with? [04:43] Yeah, so we started the company working with SpaceX. [04:47] And they've continued to be a great partner for us. And what that means is that [04:51] As SpaceX rolls out throughout the world, and most people don't know, five years ago they hadn't even launched Starlink. Now it's in 150 countries and it's continuing to grow every week. [05:01] we are the first mover when it comes to the infrastructure. [05:04] And that partnership works really well. [05:06] because we complement the connectivity with the infrastructure and the AI. [05:10] On the other hand, we also partner with the big cloud providers like Microsoft, extending all of these really powerful models, [05:17] to the edge, even Azure Stack, which is a piece of hardware, [05:22] that Microsoft has developed, it can go in the Galleon. So we've given it a home and we've extended all the benefits of that to the Edge. [05:29] And then there's lots of others. We announced recently a partnership with Skydio. We announced another one with OpenAI, taking their models to the edge for the first time. So partnerships are a key part of our strategy. And it's, again, taking these capabilities, bringing them all together at the edge in a way that is turnkey for the people that are really just trying to solve the most important problems on the ground. [05:47] - Okay. [05:48] I think those are awesome, but one of the most [05:51] I think interesting things about Armada is just the extreme environments that you work in. [05:56] Can you lay out as many as possible? Yeah. When we say the edge, we really mean it. I'll just give a few recent examples. Just this week, we announced that we did the first offshore edge computing that the Navy's ever done. We did that as part of the Unitoss exercise this year, running cutting edge applications like Minotaur, Maven, there was an Azure stack in there.

[06:16] bringing that all together at the edge, in the belly of an aircraft carrier. You can run these things in the middle of the ocean. And then if you wanna deploy it, you can put it in the C-17, C-130. So this edge is really being redefined. And then another example is, [06:30] the hottest temperatures in the world. We were the first modular data center ever to be deployed in the middle of the summer in the desert in Saudi Arabia with Aramco working with Microsoft. And then also on the flip side, we were deployed in basically the Arctic with the state of Alaska, the first modular data center ever in Alaska, helping to cut [06:49] the time to process large amounts of data from drones, from 30 hours to real time, [06:55] in order to better respond to avalanches and floods and other types of natural disasters. [06:59] And you go on site for all of these, right? We always are at the edge. It's funny, I get messages from our team all the time and it's like, [07:06] the most crazy places you can imagine and the edge is going to continue to get you know redefined i get calls literally i was on the call with somebody and they're like hey can we get one of these in antarctica i'm like well yeah starlink's live in antarctica no reason why we can't do that obviously data center in space is the new hotness everybody's talking about what's the deal with that so are you going to get these in space they are modular i mean the edge is continuing to expand i mean uh this is actually a debate that we have in terms of how soon it's going to happen but it's it's

[07:36] and it makes sense, right? If you think about, and a lot of this is public, but what SpaceX is talking about with Starship, going to the moon, you're going to need compute, [07:47] especially as you start to think about Optimus robots building bases on the Moon, later Mars, you're going to need large amounts of compute. Not to mention a lot of the things that we do here on Earth, you're going to want to do there in space, and it's a lot more efficient to do it, especially in hostile environments, if you can automate more of that. Things like mining, for example. And so you're going to see data centers in space, and I'm sure we're definitely going to be a part of it. [08:10] What do you think about SpaceX's Vermeer IPO for 2026? I mean, I think SpaceX is an incredible company and they have a ton of value. So I don't have any insider information here, but I would say, hey, if the world can get access to, you know, SpaceX, I think that's a good thing. And I know that was one of your first partners. You talked about that a little bit. So can you just talk about how SpaceX has been expanding Starlink and the ways in which you work together? [08:40] Starlink is really amazing in the sense that it just continues to get better so fast. And I mean that in a few ways. So one is, as I mentioned, they're expanding really fast. They're rolling out in new countries. [08:51] every week in major markets, right? So just as a real recent example, just this last week they launched in South Korea, right? Big market and an important ally for the US, so that's a big deal. The second thing is they are also expanding the types of services that are available. It started that Starlink was just a consumer product, then they brought it to Enterprise,

[09:12] And, you know, initially that was used by enterprises more as a backup, and now it's being used more as a primary. And that is because the service keeps getting better and better and better as more birds, more satellites go up into the sky. And then each generation of satellite is also better. [09:27] not to mention the terminals on the ground, and there's now multiple types of terminals, including the more recent minis that people really like. "Hey, I can put it in a backpack if I go on a hike, if I'm traveling, I can put it on the ski rack of my car." Perfect internet all the time. And so all that does for us is it gives us more use cases that we can unlock where we say, "Okay, now that you have connectivity, [09:47] on the oil rig. [09:49] or even on a farm or a ranch. [09:52] Wherever you are, we can actually then apply the AI to those situations on the ground without any latency and then send the metadata back to some other location that they want it. [10:03] Part of your full stack approach. Part of the full stack approach and also with star shield. I mean, that's a huge advantage that we have when you think about [10:09] you know, some of the conflicts that are going on [10:12] And people talk to me a lot about this race that we're in with China and, you know, the geopolitical conflicts that are going on around the world. Yeah. I am very grateful that SpaceX is an American company. I feel like it's an unfair advantage that we have with now Star Shield with, you know, [10:27] that available to [10:29] the D.O.W. And we again want to be the first mover with the infrastructure and AI to help with different problems at the edge. And then the work we're doing with the Navy is a good example of that. Sorcery is brought to you by Brex, the financial stack trusted by more than 30,000 companies, including one in three venture backed startups in the U.S. Nearly 40 percent of startups fail because they run out of cash. Brex is literally built to help founders avoid that.

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[12:35] than the rest of my life combined. And it's funny, there's more entrepreneurs here at Reagan National Defense Forum than I've ever seen in the five years I've been here. And I see that's a good leading indicator for the country. I really believe that. [12:47] Tech is working with the government. [12:49] good things are going to happen. That's our competitive advantage versus China. [12:53] As far as that specific event, [12:56] It was actually fortuitous. We had been working with the government, but we didn't know that they were going to announce the AI action plan that day. That happened to be the same day that we did our white paper at this event. We thought maybe, but it ended up being directly aligned. And basically what we're saying is, you know, pillar one of the AI action plan, which we talk a lot in our white paper is we need to deploy infrastructure fast. This goes to the point about what's the role of these modular AI factories. [13:21] We can't wait years for construction and permits. [13:24] we need to deploy these wherever we have available land and energy. And the nice thing about modular AI factories, if you have a lot of stranded natural gas, you can use that to power them. Or if you have nuclear, you can use that. So we're very flexible on the power [13:37] We just need power and land of any kind. [13:39] And then the third pillar of the AI action plan, which we also talk about in our white paper, is taking that technology as we continue to rapidly iterate and improve on it, which we're doing with every generation now of our galleons. And we've had many generations now. And then exporting that to our allies. And we're doing this. I was just actually back in D.C. for the U.S. Saudi Business Council. We're working with Aramco. We're working with other key companies with allies in different parts of the world.

[14:09] because in a few years what's going to happen is [14:12] One of two things, either the world is going to be running on the USAI stack, [14:16] or it's gonna be running on the Chinese AI stack. And I don't wanna live in a world where, you know, the world's running on the Chinese AI stack, [14:22] that AI is teaching our kids, it's, you know, causing all that information to go back to China. That's not a good scenario for us. And so we need to make sure that we win. And that's really what [14:33] We're all about taking the six gigawatts of stranded energy in the country, putting it to work for AI and then exporting it [14:39] faster than China can by a Huawei and other state-backed companies. And then also with Starlink, one of the reasons why it's such a great partnership is that we can be the first mover as the connectivity goes [14:49] around the globe and again front run Huawei and box them out. [14:53] Moxmo. So I kind of want to talk a little bit more on like the positioning of Armada and how important it is to be close to the data centers. So could you just share why [15:05] globally [15:06] It's so important for us to have these strategic positions around the world. [15:10] Yeah, I'll just I'll use like a military example and then I'll give some other examples. But if you think about a military example, [15:16] If you look at where a lot of these conflicts happen now, it's in the Pacific. It's in the Arctic. Obviously, I think there was a recent Wall Street Journal article about what Russia and China are doing in the Arctic. [15:29] It's a real problem that right now, [15:33] we have all of these drones and cutting edge AI models that we want to use, but we don't have any infrastructure in any of those locations. Basically nowhere in the Pacific theater and also nowhere in the Arctic and other contested locations around the world.

[15:50] What happens is you're faced with this really bad dilemma, which is either we just don't use those technologies if something happens in those places, [15:58] or [15:58] We do, but we have to send it to some data center that's thousands of miles away. [16:03] And when we do that, there's security issues. You know, the number one time when data is hacked is when it's in motion. There's massive cost. It's about twice as expensive to do that, running the latest [16:14] large AI models in the cloud versus at the edge. Yeah. And then on top of that, there's massive latency. And if you think about taking large amounts of data from drones, or if we're using robots or, you know, Sironic ships or sail drones or whatever to respond to these things, [16:29] you can't have any latency because by definition, this all has to be done in real time in the moment when you're addressing a threat. Another good example is emergency response. We work with the state of Alaska. They're using us for responding to avalanches and also to floods and other natural disasters. We were also very involved with the response to the fires that happened here in SoCal last year. Can you share more about that? That was insane. That was amazing, by the way. [16:59] a lot with Armada and this is one reason why I love building our company is [17:02] we saw what was happening and we just started to call up all of the first responders and say, [17:08] We just want to help. [17:09] And we actually called up SpaceX, or I think they called us, and we said, hey, let's just jump in and help with this thing. And then we'll figure out if these people become customers later. And that's literally what we did. We hadn't figured out contracts. We hadn't figured out anything. We just went in and helped. And what's amazing what has come out of that, we have so many customers throughout the state. And I think that's something that I try to always talk to our team about. If we have a value at the company, which is live the mission.

[17:39] THE END OF THE END OF THE [17:39] They'll never forget it and they'll want to work with you for the long haul. [17:42] So what are you most looking forward to in this next year? 2025 is pretty much over. What's coming on? Man, 2026 is going to be a massive year. I think that this is [17:52] the year that you really see [17:55] us [17:56] taking these models [17:58] at scale. [17:59] to critical industries. I mean, one of the things that we've done is we've already deployed now in some of the most austere environments in the world. This is not like a theoretical. This is proven hardened technology and it's very high value use cases. And so now what we're seeing is [18:15] Maybe we started at one site with a customer and then they say, "Hey, by the way, [18:19] I've got 300 oil rigs where I want this. By the way, I don't have one aircraft carrier. I've got [18:24] you know, hundreds of them. So I'm excited to scale real world AI. And then I think the other thing that you're going to see is that we're going to continue to expand our work [18:33] the dow one reason why i'm here [18:36] and then also expanding our partners geographically. I mean, we're already a global company, we're in, [18:43] a lot of countries and we're expanding. You're always on a plane. I'm on a plane a lot and I expect more of that but [18:49] That's the company that we want to build. We want to build a global company, just like SpaceX, just like a lot of the companies that we admire that can solve the biggest problems at the edge. [18:57] Some of you may not have heard this yet, but our sponsor Public just launched something called Generated Assets, and it brings AI into investing in a way I've honestly never seen before. Here's how it works. You type in an idea like AI-powered supply chain companies with positive free cash flow or defense tech companies growing revenue over 25% year over year. Public's AI then dispatches a swarm of agents that scan every single US stock, evaluates them, and instantly builds a custom

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[21:09] Amazing. Any last remarks from you, Dan? I would just say, if this is your first Reagan National Defense Forum, enjoy it. We've got a great day out here. I mean, it's amazing how many friends, entrepreneurs I've run into, as well as... [21:22] people in the government. So it's gonna be a good day. [21:24] What do you admire most about Reagan? [21:27] Oh man. [21:28] uh well [21:29] I'm from California, right? So it's near and dear to my heart. I admire that he was able to [21:35] unify a lot of people, both in my home state, you know, born and raised in California, inspire a lot of people. He was able to actually, you know, obviously change his career and he chose to serve the country and then obviously took it to [21:50] the presidency and had made a huge impact there. So I think I really admire his way to bringing together both my home state and the country. And then just how we led as a leader and the fact that he wasn't afraid to stick up his hand when he really didn't need to and say, I'm going to serve my country and I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure that the U.S. becomes the and remains the world's foremost superpower. [22:13] - That's a wonderful place to end. Dan Wright, CEO of Ramona, thank you very much. - Thanks Molly. [22:19] Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, Sorcery.bc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.