Willdan Benefits from AI Lapping Up Electricity
Willdan Benefits from AI Lapping Up Electricity The intelligence may be artificial, but the growing electricity needs are very real. Just ask Willdan Group, Anaheim’s most valuable publicly traded company. The environmental engineering services firm on Aug. 1 reported second-quarter results that surpassed analysts’ estimates, boosting the share price by 12%. “The electric load growth macrotrend strengthened over the quarter, fueled by growth in electricity demand at data centers from artificial intelligence,” Chief Executive Mike Bieber said in a statement announcing the results. Business Intelligence Roadmap PowerPoint Template Nulivo Market The increased demand for AI has benefited companies with local ties like Broadcom, whose co-founder Henry Samueli is now the second richest man in Orange County (see the July 29 issue for more details). 160% Increase While AI’s electric thirst may come as a surprise to some, experts have had their eyes on it for a long time. “On average, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search. In that difference lies a coming sea change in how the U.S., Europe and the world at large will consume power —and how much that will cost,” Goldman Sachs said in a report in May. Business Intelligence PowerPoint Template PPT Templates The financial giant added: “Now, as the pace of efficiency gains in electricity use slows and the AI revolution gathers steam, Goldman Sachs Research estimates that data center power demand will grow 160% by 2030.” CNBC reported in late July that “concerns are mounting about whether the U.S. can generate enough electricity for the widespread adoption of AI, and whether our aging grid will be able to handle the load.” As the demand grows, Willdan’s goal is to help companies, utilities and government agencies control their electricity use, including “efficiency and sustainability.” For example, Willdan said in July it had reduced the energy used annually at a large data center in the Pacific Northwest by more than 4.1 million kilowatt hours. Business Intelligence PowerPoint Template and Google Slides For perspective, the average American home buys about 899 kilowatt hours of energy per month, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Energy Efficiency “Artificial intelligence and other new technologies have the potential to significantly increase energy consumed by data centers,” CEO Bieber said last month. “By using energy efficiency strategies, data center owners can reduce cooling loads and increase reliability.”Recent contract wins for Willdan include Meta (Facebook) to study emissions related to voluntary clean energy procurement; the State of Virginia to perform analysis on grid impact from increased energy demand and the City of Paramount for solar, storage and EV charging infrastructure. Willdan Group’s shares have gained more than 80% in the past year, as companies increasingly seek ways to hold down energy costs. The shares were trading at $36.42 apiece as of Aug. 7, for a market cap of $509.6 million. The company has boosted its annual forecast to a profit of $2 to $2.10 a share on sales of $280 million to $290 million. Analysts had expected $1.85 a share in sales of $280.1 million. Best free presentation software of 2024 The best free presentation software makes it simple and easy to create professional presentations without a Microsoft subscription. While PowerPoint is the market leader when it comes to presentation software, some people may be unwilling to subscribe to a Microsoft 365 subscription, especially if they don’t expect to need to use it very often. However, there are plenty of great alternatives to PowerPoint available for free that you can use. While these won’t have the same advanced features as PowerPoint, they still offer a very competent platform to design most any presentation that you need. To help you choose, we’ve listed below the best free presentation software currently available. Add images to your presentations using the best free photo editor. Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test. Best free presentation software overall (Image credit: Prezi) Make stylish presentations online, for free Reasons to buy+ Animated presentations + Easy to use + Allows collaborative editing Reasons to avoid- Some trial and error required Prezi turns the traditional approach to presentations on its head. Instead of creating slide after slide, this presentation software gives you a single giant canvas. You can add blocks of text or images, or even create miniature slides. During your presentation, you can seamlessly fly around the canvas and zoom in to look at individual chunks of content. For how complex Prezi seems, it’s impressively simple to use the platform. The only major divergence from Microsoft PowerPoint is that you need to add animated paths from one part of the canvas to another. The tools for this are fairly straightforward, especially if you’ve ever used an animation or video editing software. Of course, this type of presentation structure isn’t always ideal. Prezi makes it hard to visualize structured data like financials, which can make it difficult to use in business applications. Some viewers also might not appreciate the fly-around animation style that’s inherent to the presentation software. Read our full Prezi review. Best free presentation software for functionality (Image credit: LibreOffice) Free presentation software that’s a dead ringer for PowerPoint Reasons to buy+ Most of Powerpoint’s functionality + Works with Keynote for Mac + Hundreds of free templates Reasons to avoid- No built-in collaboration tools LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and it includes a Powerpoint equivalent called Impress with nearly all of the same functionality. The only big difference you’ll find between the two slideshow creation tools is the LibreOffice lacks some modern features like built-in collaboration and integration with Microsoft OneDrive. However, Impress does have a few advantages of its own. The software can import files from Keynote, the default presentation software on Mac computers. Plus, there are hundreds of free templates that you can download for free. Even better, there’s no limit on …