Show Notes 172: AI, Climate, and the Future: Can Cambridge Lead the Way?

As we wrap up an extraordinary year for both AI and climate innovation, the Cambridge Tech Podcast delivers an unmissable debate straight from Cambridge Tech Week 2025: “Is climate good or bad for AI?” This thought-provoking episode is essential listening for founders, investors, and anyone passionate about the intersection of technology and sustainability.

The lively panel features:

• Jono Evans (Principal at IQ Capital): Former diplomat and deeptech VC with a focus on decarbonisation,

• Adam Mandel (Entrepreneur in Residence, Carbon 13, and Energised AI co-founder): With over 15 years in applied AI and energy tech,

• Prof. Anil Madavapeddi (Planetary Computing, University of Cambridge): Expert in AI for climate and Earth observation.

Bullet Points: Key Takeaways

• AI’s Growing Footprint: Training frontier AI models is massively energy-intensive—think billions of pounds and the equivalent annual power consumption of entire UK counties.

• Global Competition & UK’s Role: The US and China dominate in sheer model scale and capital, but the UK can lead with small, efficient models, edge computing, and unique research talent.

• Climate Shockwaves: A 2.5ºC world would “fundamentally restructure the world’s global supply chain,” warns Prof. Madavapeddi.

• Sovereign AI & Infrastructure: Expect a world where every country wants their own AI infrastructure—raising urgent questions about energy independence, data localisation, and technological sovereignty.

• Hardware & Efficiency Race: Innovations like IPUs and federated learning promise greater sustainability, but as costs drop, usage surges, so efficiency gains may be offset by soaring demand (Jevons’ Paradox in action).

Quotes to Inspire & Challenge

“If 100 people in this room ran 100 AI tasks daily, their energy use each year would equal the whole of Oxfordshire’s electricity consumption.” — Jono Evans

“At 2.5ºC of warming, the basic mechanisms of the way we live will change fundamentally—especially food security and global supply chains.” — Prof. Anil Madavapeddi

“AI is a tool. Whether it’s good or bad will depend on the human culture that uses it.” — Adam Mandel

Real Talk: AI, Talent, and Global Equity

The conversation dives into tech migration, talent wars, and how AI and climate will influence where the world’s smartest prefer to live and work. While AI enables remote, distributed innovation—even “vibe coding on an anthill in the Okavango Delta”—the race for compute and data sovereignty is heating up.

The panel doesn’t shy from tough questions, including:

• Will AI widen the gap for the developing world, especially where diesel and renewables collide for basic connectivity?

• Can new federated and edge approaches democratise access, or will ‘AI nationalism’ lead to new inequalities?

• Are we at risk of losing decades of institutional knowledge in engineering, or can AI be our bridge to innovation?

Why Listen & Subscribe?

This is a masterclass in the thick, thorny tradeoffs facing tech founders, VCs, and policymakers. You’ll leave with new perspectives, a dash of optimism, and real inspiration to make your own mark.

To listen and subscribe, search for ‘Cambridge Tech Podcast’ on your favourite podcasting platform or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com.