PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is be­ing urged to hold on de­vel­op­ing da­ta cen­tres in Trinidad and To­ba­go un­til cer­tain­ty con­cern­ing gas sup­ply is ad­dressed.

Gre­go­ry Fer­nan­dez, CEO of In­tel­li­co AI Agency Lim­it­ed, which was launched yes­ter­day, urged Gov­ern­ment to prac­tice so­cial pri­or­i­ty, as there were too many vari­ables re­gard­ing T&T’s en­er­gy re­sources at this time.

Two weeks ago Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced two MOUs had been signed, one with Ernst & Young and an­oth­er with Hum­ming­bird AI con­cern­ing the de­vel­op­ment of AI da­ta cen­tres in this coun­try. The da­ta cen­tres were ex­pect­ed to be a 300 MW fa­cil­i­ty and a 150 MW fa­cil­i­ty re­spec­tive­ly, prompt­ing de­bate as to if T&T had the ca­pac­i­ty to sup­port such an ini­tia­tive.

Fer­nan­dez, who is al­so a mem­ber of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, ad­dressed the is­sue at a me­dia launch for In­tel­li­co. He said there are clear signs that AI can dri­ve sig­nif­i­cant change in T&T, and ad­mit­ted da­ta cen­tres do rep­re­sent for­ward-think­ing in­vest­ment.

How­ev­er he felt there are too many ques­tions con­cern­ing the sup­ply need­ed for these da­ta cen­tres

“The chal­lenge here, the da­ta cen­tres to boost them, you need sig­nif­i­cant pow­er. Our chal­lenge here is: do we have that pow­er read­i­ly avail­able, and do we have the abil­i­ty to sus­tain it? “ asked Fer­nan­dez at In­tel­li­co’s Ed­ward Street of­fice.

“So the whole ques­tion of what we see hap­pen­ing in Point Lisas, where those big com­pa­nies are strug­gling for gas. What is go­ing to dri­ve and pow­er the AI da­ta cen­tres? That’s re­al­ly the ques­tion.”

He con­tin­ued, “So, if that is solved, then that oth­er ques­tion could be solved. So, un­til they come up with a plan that shows that we can or we do have that pow­er to pow­er these da­ta cen­tres, to me the ar­gu­ment is moot.”

Sim­i­lar ques­tions, he ex­plained could be raised with re­gard to wa­ter sup­ply.

“Same is­sue with wa­ter. Be­cause you know they have to be cooled, and so on. Let’s have or get new tech­nolo­gies that can cool them with­out the use of a big set of wa­ter re­sources. It has to be done with­in that con­text. Peo­ple first, da­ta cen­tre af­ter,” he said.

Fer­nan­dez said his new agency will use agen­tic AI to build so­lu­tions meant to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cies across var­i­ous sec­tors in T&T and the re­gion. It will re­veal these so­lu­tions at an event on Au­gust 26.