Chris Lehane at SXSW Sydney 2025
Over the past year, I've often felt like I'm building a plane in the air. Trying to keep pace with the speed of change in artificial intelligence while helping others do the same.
Listening to Chris Lehane, OpenAI's Vice President of Global Affairs, at SXSW Sydney 2025's discussion with Paul Smith of the Australian Financial Review made me realise that even the frontier leaders of this revolution feel it too. The technology is evolving faster than society can adapt. We are all learning in real time, shaping frameworks for responsible use while already in flight.
The Defining Technology of This Century
Lehane described AI as the defining productivity technology of this century. It will grow the global economy — if its benefits are shared. He warned that adoption is happening in five years, not ten, and that we are entering a new kind of global competition.
He called it a "competition rather than a race" between democratic and autocratic systems. Whoever sets the standards for safety, data and governance will define the next digital order.
Electrons Translate Into Intelligence
Lehane also said that "electrons translate into intelligence." AI's future rests on energy, data, chips and talent. Clean power, he argued, will become the world's strategic advantage. Renewables and nuclear together will be essential to sustain intelligence at scale.
Listening to him, I realised even the biggest players are still building the plane as they fly it. The difference is scale, not certainty.