Name: Bill Tai, ACTAI Global
Uploaded: 2026-07-13T19:00:00.000Z
Duration: 9 min 46 s

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More from theCUBE + NYSE Wired: ACTAI Maui 2026

Bill Tai

Chairman

ACTAI Global

play_circle_outline AI, Sovereign Clouds, and the Global Data Center Boom: From Information Pipes to Distilled Knowledge

play_circle_outline Emergence of AI agents boosting productivity and causing layoffs

15:26

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Bill Tai, ACTAI Global

Bill Tai

Chairman ACTAI Global

John Furrier

>> Bill, so the global economy really is driven by AI. We're starting to see that with sovereign cloud. What's your vision on that? Because this is where it crosses over to becoming an economy and we've seen technology is now the market everywhere.

Bill Tai

>> Yeah. I think one of the things that the internet brought us was obviously great access to information from anywhere in the world. And we're at a point in time where literally any government anywhere can see what's happening in real time and ask themselves the question, "Should I be on this wave or not? Is it going to help my country's economic productivity?" And I think we've moved from a world where Google could organize the world's information to where those pipes are not just carrying the access to the information, but it's the knowledge distilled from it. So the value of what's carried in those pipes is going up exponentially and it's able to reach the far reaches of the earth wherever there is access. And I think with that is coming the infrastructure upon which it runs because it can be carried over pipes far, far, far away, but there's latency involved. So data centers which have been growing like crazy in America are now getting placed in every region of the world.

John Furrier

>> What's been the biggest change since last year at Maui? And looking back from last year to here, obviously this global, we've seen sovereignty. In your mind, what's been the biggest change?

Bill Tai

>> I think it's the agents. I think it's last year was all about what is AI going to do and why is Nvidia growing so fast? What's happening with the LLM companies and the training on the inside? And as I listen to all these companies talk now, the productivity in terms of numbers of employee or fixed productivity with a fraction of the employees, every single one of these companies is talking about how, oh my God, we're doing five times as much with the same people or we're doing twice as much with a third of the people. It's mind-blowing and a little uncomfortable with the number of people laid off.

John Furrier

>> I love the ACTAI vision. We were talking before we came on camera around the contribution, the community. Kitesurfing has been your love and now it's a community, you get to do what you love and kind of bring people together. The wind's kicking up early and they're still giving talks to them. I'm sure the kiters are getting pretty antsy.

Bill Tai

>> As soon as the leaves start moving on trees, people are looking out the window.

John Furrier

>> Talk about the community that's developing. Obviously, you're very humble and we've talked before about this. You just letting it grow. You're including people, you're very inclusive. How do you view it right now? How do you look at the community how it's developing? Is it a pinch me moment for you? Is it more, "Let's keep rolling, don't fight gravity"? What's your Bill's high take on just how this has turned into such a global phenomenon?

Bill Tai

>> I have to say I never expected it and I never planned it. I was just out there as a tech person wanting to kite every day and I did. And I think I drew a group of people that were like me and they happened to be high performers because I think people in the early phases of this sport had to be a little nutty, a little intense like entrepreneurs too. And I think that the depth of bonding produced this little core of energy that expanded over time to include more people like it. And I think because the sport and because technology are always changing so fast, particularly at the start of the sport, it was both of those tech and kiting were things where you couldn't read to learn. You had to talk to somebody because everything that was happening in the front end was happening so fast, it wasn't yet documented. And I think as a result, there's constant communication and there's a throwback that I think of, which is the Homebrew Computer Club. So if you think about place yourself back into like the 1979 to 1987 period when that club was active, you had a bunch of kids like a Steve Wozniak taking electronic components and nailing them onto a piece of wood and attaching things to make what would become the Apple computer and other people building similar things from like Atari and there was a limited audience. They had to show each other what they were building to get feedback. And so that's what this is in a way. It's people on the front end working on stuff that hasn't yet materialized wanting to know what do people think.

John Furrier

>> It's collaborative.

Bill Tai

>> It is. You learn.

John Furrier

>> It's very communal too. And you're in the water as you say. It's funny, founders always want to make the perfect product because they have these stories that the lower comes out, "Oh, Apple computer." If you look at the first Mac, I mean Apple computer, it was a wooden box.

Bill Tai

>> It was a piece of wood.

John Furrier

>> It was a wooden box with a terminal. It was the ugliest, coolest thing you've ever seen, but the fact that it was a computer So puts the reality that you don't have to be the best, have that most polished product.

Bill Tai

>> I tell people that a lot of being a successful entrepreneur is getting into the vortex of information because until you've launched a product or shown it to people, you don't really know. And then once you have, you figure out all the things that didn't work. And then before you launch your product, you're guessing. And then once you get into this mode where you have customer requests for features, then literally all you have to do is you list every feature everyone wants and you count them up and you go from number one to number 10 and your roadmap becomes like a thousand times more efficient because you're not experimenting, you're delivering what people want.

John Furrier

>> Yeah. And so that's the entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a big part of your life and you're very passionate about it and you're now harnessing that entrepreneurship with ACTAI Global. It's a central theme in your life and here in this community. Talk about that dynamic, not just the opportunity, but how that kind of makes it go.

Bill Tai

>> I describe this community to some as it's like we're like a fertilizer bed of humans that have a lot of different superpowers mushed up into this fabric and a seedling. An entrepreneur with a new idea can drop down in, root a little bit. There's enough people in the community that have also hit it enough that they can fund things and then that's like the little water that comes down. So you got the fertilizer, the plant and the rain and the sunshine.

John Furrier

>> Yeah. And all startups that experiment and don't work out become fertilizer too. You have Helena here last year. I think she's pivoted what, three times and she's now on a bigger opportunity.

Bill Tai

>> Every time. She's learning.

John Furrier

>> That fertilizer comes in. Great stuff.

Bill Tai

>> Yeah. I think that's a great example. We have an entrepreneur here this year that was here last year and she came in with a different company that had been funded that she had started. She literally stumbled upon an opportunity to tokenize charity here for a charity that we were funding here and bam, it worked. She had to convince her old venture backers to take their money back so she could then do this next one and that opportunity led to even larger market opportunities with the changes in regulatory environment happening at the SEC with the tokenization of everything.

John Furrier

>> That's a great entrepreneurial story because it highlights a lot of dimensions. One is the old investors, her previous investors, they could say, "Well, we invested in that script and that's different so don't do it. That would foreclose that opportunity." And then you have this idea that that's kind of how it works. It's hard.

Bill Tai

>> It was hard for her to go back and say, "You know what? You funded me for this and I think I have a better one." And it was a bit of a discussion with no hard promises for them to come into the next thing. But I think because the relationship is still there, if the new project is something that's appealing, Helena's going to give them an opportunity and something that could be a lot bigger.

John Furrier

>> Well, smart money will make the right call back the founder every time. Bill Tai, great to see you again. Thanks for including us again this year and again, as always, been following all the great work and everyone's super happy. Thanks, Bill.

Bill Tai

>> Well, John, you and crew and Brian at New York Stock Exchange, you guys have been incredibly accretive to the community and every company that you touch. And like I said, our little network is this, just it has network effects of value and you guys are huge contributors to its-

John Furrier

>> And we'd love to amplify great innovation. Thanks so much for what you do. Appreciate it, Bill.

Bill Tai

>> Thank you.

John Furrier

>> All right. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. We are here in Maui of ACTAI Global. This is like the signature event on the kitesurfing and the wind is so good. If you like kitesurfing or want to try, this is the place to do it. Obviously, it's the best place to learn. Of course, we're going to hit the water soon. Thanks for watching.

Bill Tai, ACTAI Global

John Furrier

Bill Tai

John Furrier

>> What's been the biggest change since last year at Maui? And looking back from last year to here, obviously this global, we've seen sovereignty. In your mind, what's been the biggest change?

Bill Tai

John Furrier

Bill Tai

>> As soon as the leaves start moving on trees, people are looking out the window.

John Furrier

Bill Tai

John Furrier

>> It's collaborative.

Bill Tai

>> It is. You learn.

John Furrier

Bill Tai

>> It was a piece of wood.

John Furrier

Bill Tai

John Furrier

Bill Tai

John Furrier

>> Yeah. And all startups that experiment and don't work out become fertilizer too. You have Helena here last year. I think she's pivoted what, three times and she's now on a bigger opportunity.

Bill Tai

>> Every time. She's learning.

John Furrier

>> That fertilizer comes in. Great stuff.

Bill Tai

John Furrier

Bill Tai

John Furrier

Bill Tai

John Furrier

>> And we'd love to amplify great innovation. Thanks so much for what you do. Appreciate it, Bill.

Bill Tai

>> Thank you.

John Furrier