Fusion power, crumbling grids and hungry data centres: TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 maps out AI's energy crisis
A three-day conference in San Francisco this October will gather fusion scientists, grid engineers and data-centre operators to answer one urgent question: where does all the electricity come from?
Key points
- TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 runs October 13-15 at Moscone Center in San Francisco.
- The Smart Systems Stage will focus on how artificial intelligence's soaring electricity appetite is straining power grids and forcing the energy industry to move faster.
- Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion, two of the best-funded companies trying to build commercial fusion reactors, will present at the event.
- Jeff Lawson, who co-founded Twilio (a software communications company) and now leads fusion startup Inertia, is among the confirmed speakers.
- Data-centre operators and energy firms are racing to lock in electricity supplies before power shortages slow AI growth.
Artificial intelligence is, at its core, a problem of electricity. Every time a large language model, the kind of AI technology behind tools like ChatGPT, generates a response, it draws power from a data centre packed with energy-hungry chips. Scale that up to millions of users and billions of daily requests, and the strain on the power grid, the network of cables and stations that delivers electricity to homes and businesses, becomes a genuine engineering crisis.
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, running October 13-15 at San Francisco's Moscone Center, will dedicate an entire stage to that problem.
What is the Smart Systems Stage?
It is a focused track inside the larger Disrupt conference, built around energy, infrastructure and the physical demands of running AI at scale. Speakers include scientists working on fusion energy, the process of generating electricity by fusing atoms together (the same reaction that powers the sun), alongside grid engineers and data-centre executives.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems Chief Science Officer Brandon Sorbom and Helion CEO David Kirtley will share a session called "Bringing Fusion to the Grid". Fusion has been decades away from commercial reality for most of the last century. Both companies argue that is finally changing, and they plan to explain what breakthroughs have moved the timeline and what hurdles remain.
A separate fireside chat brings in Jeff Lawson, the entrepreneur who founded Twilio before leaving to lead Inertia, described as one of the best-funded fusion startups in the world. Lawson will discuss how building a telecoms software company at scale shaped the way he thinks about the slower, harder engineering timelines that fusion demands.
Why does this matter to ordinary people?
Because electricity prices, reliability and where new power plants get built are not abstract issues. If AI companies cannot secure enough power locally, they build data centres wherever cheap electricity exists, often in regions with aging grids that were never designed for this kind of load. That affects supply, pricing and carbon emissions for everyone connected to those networks.
The conference panel "Rewiring the Grid for the Electric Age" will address exactly this, with Drew Baglino (founder of Heron Power) and Apoorv Bhargava (CEO of WeaveGrid, a company that helps utilities manage digital energy systems) among the speakers.
A fourth session, "AI's Power Problem", features Sara Spangelo of Ambrosia Energy and Bill Thayer of Bloom Energy, a company that makes on-site fuel-cell power generators for commercial buildings and data centres.
| Session | Key speakers |
|---|---|
| Bringing Fusion to the Grid | Kirtley (Helion), Sorbom (Commonwealth Fusion) |
| Twilio Founder on Power | Jeff Lawson (Inertia) |
| Rewiring the Grid | Baglino (Heron Power), Bhargava (WeaveGrid) |
| AI's Power Problem | Spangelo (Ambrosia Energy), Thayer (Bloom Energy) |
A Disrupt pass covers all stages, not just Smart Systems, plus networking events across all three days. TechCrunch reports that early-bird pricing is currently available but closing soon.
