GEOT.Ai’s Jenifer Muir: Rebuilding trust in the AI power race

Ahead of Metro Connect Fall 2026, GEOT.Ai CEO and founder Jenifer Muir spoke with Capacity about the technology industry building greater trust during a time of intensifying public resistance worldwide.

Currently in countries like the US, communities are convening and opposing new technological developments – like data centres – in their local area. They are often concerned because their local economy is dependent on water – and the consumption of water and power by large AI-enabled data centres can start to eclipse what local and national grids were built for.

“The lack of trust comes in, for example, when a data centre secures buy-in from the community by making certain promises, and then in practice consumes far more water than promised, or creates brownouts,” Muir explained. “That gap – that disconnect between the promise and what’s actually deployed – is what creates the distrust.”

She added: “This is also a sign of an opportunity: to approach the challenge with empathy and to listen.”

Reminding the industry of its core – and human – mission

GEOT.Ai’s mission is to design and deploy modular net-zero AI Factories at scale, powering them with zero water consumption and zero carbon emissions. It works anywhere from five megawatts up to one gigawatt, Muir explained, designing fleets of AI Factories that are small, modular and turnkey and can be sited in existing industrial or urban environments.

“Our strategy is different. Instead of going into large open agricultural areas or land that has yet to be developed, we deploy at the edge,” Muir explained. “Because of this, in many cases we’re also preserving land and repurposing and regenerating economies in areas that have once been considered defunct or abandoned – whether that’s the revitalisation of industrial areas or urban centres.”

From this perspective, Muir identified some of the key challenges as the industry not keeping humanity as the primary focus. She told us how she’s sat in many conferences and boardrooms, where issues concerning people and public interest aren’t even a footnote in the conversation.

“The conversations were all inward and about technology and the industry,” she explained. “I think people have forgotten that we’re doing this in service to humanity – the whole transition into AI is intrinsically meant to be in service to humanity, creating greater industry efficiencies and learning.”

To help rebuild trust, Muir said operations need to be approached with greater empathy and the industry should realign on its core objective: to be of service. Her comments come during a turbulent time in the data centre industry in particular, where facilities are being built in areas like Michigan, US and Essex, UK because they were approved by governments, despite local community opposition.

“Right now, the governance of companies approaching these communities is typically aligned to shareholder value, which makes it very difficult to acknowledge the needs of a community or a social concern,” she added. “My hope is that we can rebuild trust in ways that begin to align corporate initiatives with social impact, so that success isn’t defined only by stock value, but also by how well we achieved the social goals we stated at the outset.”

The grid dilemma

Local and national grids have always served the industrialised era well, but the impact of AI and the continued digital transformation boom have scaled at a completely unprecedented rate.

To give a sense of the impact, Muir cites Dr. Lisa Su, CEO at AMD, as an example. Speaking at CES in January of this year, Su announced that AMD was forecasting ten times the current compute capacity by 2030. This means that, within the next five years, grid capacity would need to be multiplied roughly a hundred-fold, Muir explained.

“The data-compute revolution of AI requires a completely different paradigm for power and cooling,” she added. “That realisation has become the purpose – or the obligation – behind my work: for technologists and business leaders today to figure out how to create firm, low-impact power to sustain this unprecedented growth, while still keeping the promise of being in service to humanity, and maintaining a thriving, abundant ecology so our planet — a contained system — can survive.”

It’s this ethos that formed GEOT.Ai last year. Focusing on a renewable strategy, the organisation uses advanced, closed-loop geothermal heat extraction that consumes zero water – except for a small amount used in the initial drilling of the geothermal well.

“The well is designed to directly power racks using immersion cooling direct-to-chip,” Muir said. “Throughout every phase of the system’s lifecycle, zero water is consumed – meaning water can continue to serve communities and existing industries, rather than being eclipsed by AI demand.”

A focus on transparency

For GEOT.Ai, transparency includes governance and a community focus. The organisation is working with a backdrop where supply chains are growing increasingly complex and the broader ecosystem is working to bring AI Factories to market at pace to meet demand.

It can be hard within this context to remain focused on people. However, for Muir, GEOT.Ai retains its clear goals by establishing a governance structure with clear bylaws that create shareholder value, while also operating as a public benefit corporation.

“Our board of directors includes not just someone representing investors, but also a board advisor responsible for digital integrity and another who oversees public benefit,” she explained. “We’ve structured this in the form of a public benefit trust where 20% of all profit goes to the communities we serve, 10% directly to the community and another 10% to a land trust dedicated to land preservation.”

As a public benefit corporation, GEOT.Ai is subject to very strict reporting requirements – all of which Muir welcomes.

“It holds us to our promise that, alongside the innovation AI offers, we maintain firm grounding in governance and in the communities we serve,” she said.

She uses the city of Los Angeles, where she herself is based, as an example. With 11 million people, the grid here is already experiencing unexpected brownouts – in a country that is becoming very familiar with expensive congestion, rising power prices and public pushback.

“These might affect a hospital or court authorities responsible for processing millions of dollars in goods entering North America every minute,” Muir added. “These brownouts might only last an hour or two, but they affect real lives.”

Muir acknowledged an urgent need to address these problems, which she believes are in part connected to the AI data centres being brought online in surrounding areas. GEOT.Ai’s work seeks to give AI its own dedicated, firm-based power supply to free up existing grids to serve current consumers.

“I believe AI merits and requires its own firm-based power supply, with its own set of transparency, governance and rules,” she explained. “I think these approaches are mutually beneficial – in that kind of structure, AI can genuinely thrive.”

It’s clear that collaboration is desired between data centre operators, policymakers and local authorities – and yet there still seems to be a disconnect between the three. To turn conversations into action and create real progress, Muir said what’s really needed is education.

“Creating a forum for real transparency and education, so policymakers are genuinely up to date on what’s happening now and what’s coming next, and so are community leaders themselves, is essential,” she said. “The gap comes when technology leaders drive AI forward and focus on the unprecedented pace of innovation; meanwhile, community leaders are experts in social impact and economic development, not technology.”

She added: “Looking at boards of supervisors or town councils, it’s staggering how fast AI innovates. It’s almost unfair to expect our civil leaders and civil servants to keep up. This is why education is really at the heart of the matter.”

A clear path forward

Having been a part of many industry-leading conversations across the technology ecosystem, Muir is hoping for something different at Metro Connect Fall this year.

“I want to remind people why we’re doing this and bring humanity back into the room,” she explained. “There’s such a tremendous economic shift happening and it’s easy to get pulled into that vacuum. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that AI is taking the oxygen out of the room.”

An even greater shift is coming, with quantum computing and beyond. For Muir, this evolution means the industry could lose sight of the real intention of innovation if the human element isn’t returned to the conversation.

“I’d like to see the conversation shift towards our broader principles – not just how we sustain a resilient future, but how we build an abundant, regenerative one,” she said. “I think there is a clear path forward where we can start to shift away from extractive economics and move forward into a more net-zero and possibly even net-positive outcome.”

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