When Google’s president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat speaks about technology investments, Wall Street typically listens. But at this week’s Fortune Global Forum in Riyadh, Porat wasn’t talking about quarterly earnings or stock performance—she was making one of the boldest technological predictions of our generation: artificial intelligence will cure cancer within our lifetimes.
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Speaking alongside Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih and Barclays Group CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan, Porat framed AI not as the chatbot revolution that’s captured public imagination, but as something far more profound. “We are all privileged to live at this time in history,” she told the audience, describing an unfolding transformation that represents “so much more than a chatbot.”
The Scientific Promise Beyond the Hype
Porat’s comments come at a critical juncture for the AI industry. While consumer-facing applications like ChatGPT dominate headlines, Porat argued that the most transformative work is happening behind the scenes in scientific research. She pointed to DeepMind’s AlphaFold project, which has mapped protein structures in 3D, calling it “the greatest contribution to drug discovery in our lifetime.”
What’s particularly notable about Porat’s emphasis is the timing. With AI skepticism growing in some quarters and regulatory scrutiny intensifying, Google appears to be strategically repositioning AI as humanity’s next great scientific tool rather than merely a productivity enhancer. The open-source nature of AlphaFold—used by millions of scientists across 190 countries—serves as powerful evidence that the technology can accelerate research into diseases previously considered intractable.
“We should be able to cure cancer in our lifetime,” Porat asserted, framing AI as a key driver of scientific discovery. Her confidence stems from work on early disease detection, where AI systems can identify metastatic cells long before traditional methods—what she described as the proverbial “finding the needle in the haystack.”
The Infrastructure Bottleneck Nobody’s Talking About
Perhaps the most revealing part of Porat’s comments wasn’t about AI’s potential, but about the practical barriers to achieving it. She highlighted what might be the most overlooked challenge in the AI revolution: we simply don’t have enough electricians.
“There are jobs that come in trades as well as across business,” Porat noted, echoing concerns from other Fortune 500 leaders like Ford CEO Jim Farley. Google is now investing in training programs for electricians as part of its workforce initiatives—a surprising but necessary admission that technological progress means little if we lack the human infrastructure to support it.
Porat pointed to staggering unused capacity in the United States electrical grid, where independent research from Duke University suggests modernization could unlock 100 gigawatts of additional power. “The power is effectively sitting there, waiting to be connected,” she explained. This infrastructure gap represents both a massive opportunity and a critical vulnerability in the AI arms race.
The Global Economic Stakes
The discussion at the Fortune Global Forum highlighted how AI investment has become a geopolitical priority. Porat noted that “every head of state I meet wants to be part of this digital transformation,” pointing to estimates that AI could unlock a $200 billion GDP boost for Saudi Arabia and “trillions globally.”
This aligns perfectly with Saudi Arabia’s broader strategy, as emphasized by Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih, to position the kingdom as a regional hub for digital infrastructure. The presence of Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan underscored the massive capital requirements—”hundreds of billions if not trillions happening all over the world.”
Venkatakrishnan offered a sobering perspective on the investment frenzy, implicitly acknowledging concerns about an AI bubble. “In all large capital-investment cycles, there will be some misallocation, some misinvestment. It’s always true,” he cautioned. Yet he argued that whether demand turns out to be “1x or 5x of a certain projection,” investing in infrastructure remains a wise choice.
Beyond Productivity to Purpose
What sets Porat’s vision apart from typical tech executive optimism is her emphasis on human purpose rather than mere efficiency. She spoke of AI freeing workers “from the administrative tasks that take us away from what matters most,” suggesting the technology’s ultimate value lies in elevating human creativity rather than replacing it.
This represents a significant evolution in the AI narrative. While much of the current discourse focuses on job displacement and productivity metrics, Porat and her fellow panelists framed AI as enabling workers to focus on higher-value, more meaningful work. It’s a vision that acknowledges public anxieties while offering a hopeful counter-narrative.
The inclusion theme ran throughout the discussion, with particular relevance to Saudi Arabia’s diversification efforts. As the kingdom positions itself as a digital infrastructure hub, the emphasis on building supply chain resilience and energy capacity reflects a strategic understanding that the AI revolution requires both technological and human foundations.
The Road Ahead: Challenges and Opportunities
Porat’s bold prediction about curing cancer underscores a broader reality: the AI revolution is just beginning to move from consumer applications to fundamental scientific challenges. The infrastructure bottlenecks she identified—from electrical grid limitations to skilled trades shortages—suggest that the pace of progress may depend as much on solving practical problems as on technological breakthroughs.
What’s particularly striking is how Google, through Porat’s comments, appears to be staking its AI reputation on scientific achievement rather than consumer features. This positioning makes strategic sense—solving cancer is harder to criticize than replacing creative jobs or raising privacy concerns.
As Venkatakrishnan noted, major capital cycles require partners “who are there for the long term and who will help you through the teething troubles.” Porat’s closing message urged leaders to “really dig in and reimagine what’s possible,” suggesting that the companies and countries that succeed in the AI era will be those who view it not as a technological upgrade, but as a fundamental rethinking of human potential.
The journey from chatbot to cancer cure may seem improbable, but Porat’s vision reflects a growing recognition that AI’s true revolution will be measured not in quarterly earnings, but in human progress. The question now is whether the infrastructure—both technological and human—can catch up with the ambition.
