Analysis
The signal came hours ago from the brilliant Eric Schmidt, perhaps one of the most influential voices in artificial intelligence (AI).
Schmidt, former CEO of Google and one of the most influential architects of the digital revolution, issued a stark warning. He delivered it in Davos, Switzerland, in front of the world. He said he is not satisfied with merely warning about the energy crisis that is slowing AI—he is acting directly at the epicenter of the problem.
But he also revealed something striking. Through Bolt Data & Energy, the company he co-founded and chairs, Schmidt—a billionaire managing dozens of ambitious tech projects—has just finalized a strategic alliance with Texas Pacific Land Corporation, a corporate giant with 19th-century roots that today controls one of the largest private landholdings in Texas. The agreement aims to build massive data center campuses in the heart of the Permian Basin—the cradle of shale and the country’s most productive oil region—leveraging cheap gas, water, and virtually unlimited land.
The plan starts with natural gas–powered generation, transitions to renewables, and ends with nuclear. Schmidt talks about reaching 10 gigawatts: enough electricity to power seven million homes, nearly the equivalent of 30 nuclear plants combined.
For Schmidt, there is no alternative: either electricity is solved now, or AI will fall behind. Land, water, gas, and power—all in one package—so that Amazon, Microsoft, or Meta do not have to rely on the national grid. He notes that the Permian formation—an extraordinary source rock, similar to Vaca Muerta in some ways but not all—has no bureaucracy or protesting neighbors. Construction is fast, and ramp-up is quick. While gas serves as a bridge, the plan is clear: without this scale, AI will choke on its own energy demand. In the Texas desert, Schmidt is not exploring—he is installing the control board.
Schmidt’s Move Highlights Argentina’s Energy Surplus
This development resonates with Argentina’s energy surplus in 2025, which reached USD 7.815 billion according to official data from INDEC and the Ministry of Energy, the highest since these series began in 1992. Fuel and energy exports totaled USD 11.086 billion (+12.8% year-on-year), while imports fell to USD 3.271 billion (-18%). This result drove nearly 69% of the country’s total trade surplus (USD 11.286 billion), making the sector the main source of foreign currency in a year of relative macroeconomic stability.
The main driver of this performance has been Vaca Muerta, contributing roughly 67% of national oil production in several months, peaking at 868,712 barrels per day in December and averaging close to 800,000 barrels annually. Production gains were supported by technological improvements—extended laterals, optimized drilling and hydraulic fracturing—and a more predictable regulatory framework that attracted private investment.
This is structural good news: accelerated development of this unconventional formation has reversed decades of recurring energy deficits and positioned the country as a significant net exporter, even amid moderate or declining international oil prices.
Davos 2026: Energy in the global spotlight
This domestic scenario intersects with an increasingly uncertain global context, where energy and AI dominate discussions and demand for resources like Argentina’s is rising to sustain technological and geopolitical transitions.
At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, under the theme of cooperation in a fragmented world, several leaders presented visions with direct implications for Argentina, capturing international attention for their bluntness and scope.
Javier Milei spoke in defense of free-market capitalism as the only moral and efficient system, criticizing socialism and interventionism for causing decline. He invoked religious texts to question Western decay and praised the United States under Trump as a beacon of freedom, positioning Argentina as a strategic Western ally and highlighting reforms implemented since his assumption of office. His message aligned with the energy surplus and private investment attraction, though it omitted references to social costs of adjustment or risks of external commodity dependence.
Donald Trump outlined a vision of U.S. prosperity based on energy dominance through oil and gas, emphasizing that the country possesses “the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it.” He criticized European energy policies, including the U.K. for underutilizing the North Sea, and attacked wind energy for land destruction and financial losses. He promoted domestic crude and gas production as key to lowering prices and strengthening the economy, highlighting U.S. production increases—including agreements with Venezuela for additional volumes—and rejected what he called “destructive” renewable policies that raise costs and shift jobs abroad. He reiterated interest in Greenland without invoking military force and proposed an ad hoc “Peace Council” including Argentina.
Mark Carney, as former Canadian prime minister, described a “rupture” in the global order, where economic integration becomes a geopolitical weapon. He called for strategic autonomy in energy, food, and critical minerals, urging massive infrastructure and technology investments. For medium-sized economies like Canada—and by analogy Argentina—he stressed the need to diversify partners and avoid excessive dependence on major powers.
Energy as the Bottleneck for AI
A significant portion of Davos focused on the intersection of energy and AI, revealing underlying structural tensions.
Eric Schmidt, now focused on Schmidt Futures (a philanthropic and research fund), the Special Competitive Studies Project (a U.S.-China technology competition think tank), and astronomical and aerospace ventures, emphasized the urgent need for cheap, abundant energy—particularly natural gas—to scale AI.
He argued that energy costs are one of the main barriers to training and operating large AI models, and that Europe must reduce energy prices and invest in open-source AI to avoid losing ground to China. For Argentina, with its gas and oil surplus from Vaca Muerta, this represents a potential opportunity to attract similar energy infrastructure investments for AI, though bottlenecks in transmission and competitive pricing must be addressed.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla (electric vehicles and batteries), SpaceX (reusable rockets and Starlink), Neuralink (brain-machine interfaces), xAI (AI development focused on understanding the universe and advancing toward AGI), and owner of X, highlighted obstacles to solar expansion due to high panel tariffs—mainly Chinese—and argued that Western tariffs slow the transition while China installs massive capacity. He proposed large solar fields in sparsely populated areas combined with battery storage for 24/7 power, linking the topic to AI: orbital servers to overcome thermal and energy limits, and robots to ensure future abundance.
His proposals highlight the urgency of lowering energy costs to support data center demand, a challenge Argentina could face if it seeks to attract high-performance computing investments.
Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind (responsible for AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and models like Gemini) and leader of Isomorphic Labs (AI applied to drug discovery), estimated a 50% chance of achieving AGI—artificial general intelligence capable of performing any intellectual task as well as or better than humans—within the next decade, with impacts greater than the Industrial Revolution. AI will affect basic jobs but also create new ones; in energy, it could optimize exploration and production, though it will require massive electrical infrastructure that Vaca Muerta alone cannot supply.
Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic (creators of the Claude family, emphasizing safe and aligned AI), was more direct: AI will replace software engineers in the short term, making economic redistribution urgent to avoid extreme inequality. He criticized chip sales to China and predicted explosive but concentrated growth, with implications for countries like Argentina that rely on skilled labor in extractive and tech sectors.
Together, the voices at Davos 2026 highlight a world where cheap, abundant energy is a necessary—but not sufficient—condition for capturing AI’s value. Argentina currently enjoys a temporary energy surplus thanks to Vaca Muerta and rising mining potential, but faces an uncertain transition: hydrocarbons and minerals fund the present, while future demand is shifting toward energy-intensive sources, with the U.S. pressing for alliances that prioritize its strategic needs.