By BOB TOMPKINS
“Data centers are the new strip (mall) centers,” the founder and CEO of a global energy company told the Downtown Rotary Club Tuesday in Alexandria’s Convention Hall.
Pineville native Bobby Tudor, the chief of Artemis Energy Partners, an investing and advisory platform in Houston focused on companies involved in the global energy markets, is a 1982 graduate of Rice University. He said many of his fellow graduates that year talked of starting a strip center. In 2026, he said, many graduates are talking of starting a data center.
The U.S. is in (and leads) an “AI arms race” with China. Both view AI leadership as imperative, so the U.S. wants to maintain its advantage and China wants to obtain the leadership in the technology. Besides that, some companies are more interested in “their own competitive opportunity” with AI, he said. There are opportunities for, among others, chip makers, data center developers and state and local governments.
The centers require massive energy and water resources, with the need to be “always on,” 24 hours of the day. As we have seen in Central Louisiana, some communities are pushing back, he said, as people want to understand all the implications, especially “who pays for what?”
“A lot of data centers will get built (across America),” he said, “and the capital required to do more building is there. One question is if too much will get built.”
There’s no question, though, that with increased demands for electricity in the U.S., data centers are necessary, he said, and can yield attractive financial benefits for a community.
He expects the trend will be that the centers are built in clusters, such as in west Texas, rather than be randomly built “here and there.”
Tudor addressed many energy issues relating to oil, liquified natural gas and more, predicting high product prices will be slow to decline.
“We are facing a dual challenge,” he said. “The world needs significantly more energy” while it also needs to “significantly reduce emissions.”
“The hierarchy of energy needs,” he said, relates to “reliability, affordability and sustainability.” He said the focus of the Biden Administration was heavily on sustainability, whereas the Trump Administration is mostly focused on reliability and affordability.” He’d prefer to see a more evenly balanced focus on all three.
He believes consumers will “buy sustainability if it is equally reliable and affordable. The Ukraine War proved it in Europe, and the Chinese are way ahead on that basis.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created a crisis that shattered Europe’s reliance on cheap Russian fossil fuels. This triggered a severe energy crunch. Europe transitioned quickly to green technology as the crisis forced sustainability to meet the thresholds of reliability and affordability.
A few other points he made:
- Solar with batteries competes effectively in much of the world, depending on the cost of the alternative, mostly gas and coal; and
- Electric Vehicles (EVs) do better when gasoline costs are high.