Tech and Government Leaders Converge in Nashville for ImagineIF Conference

Many types of power graced the ornate theater and marble lobby of Belmont’s Fisher Center this week for ImagineIF, the second annual high-profile convening from Bitcoin Park partner Rod Roudi. A curated guest list — nuclear experts, think-tankers, blockchainers, Bitcoiners, congressmen, top brass from NVIDIA, both of Tennessee’s U.S. senators — reflects the vast professional and social network boosting Nashville’s stature as a glitzy technofuturist hub.

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Roudi and others helped build Nashville’s cryptocurrency scene with Bitcoin Park. The city also hosts BTC Media, which publishes Bitcoin Magazine, and brought thousands — including a campaigning Donald Trump — to Music City Center in 2024 for the currency’s premier international conference (which will return to Nashville in 2027). The campus in Hillsboro Village has become a meeting place for entrepreneurs, hackers, media and professionals, hosting regular meetup events relating Bitcoin to topics like digital anonymity, software development and U.S. treasury policy.

This week’s conference fueled the ambition and scale of technological progress with its central theme: completing the sentence, “Imagine if ...” Twenty-minute presentations that fell somewhere between TED Talks and university lectures had provocative titles like “ImagineIF AI Worked for Freedom,” “ImagineIF Tyranny had Nowhere to Hide” and “ImagineIF the U.S. Led the Convergence Decade.” The latter was a Q&A discussion moderated by U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty that circled Tennessee for a large-scale data center buildout to help American tech outmaneuver Chinese competitors. Blackburn’s presentation — “Imagine IF It All Got Built Here,” alongside Deputy Gov. Stuart McWhorter, who has led economic development under Gov. Bill Lee — is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. 

Consensus among presenters and attendees focused on upside to tech like Bitcoin, nuclear power and AI, rather than the environmental, social and economic concerns that have animated opponents against their rapid acceleration. Tech leaders, top AI developers and current and former employees developing agents have issued stark warnings about the need to coordinate and regulate artificial intelligence to avoid unintended and potentially catastrophic outcomes. 

Roudi opened ImagineIF with a focus on energy. America’s top corporations have brought a renewed focus to producing, supplying, using and transmitting energy as they race to develop stronger artificial intelligence. Efficiently linking electricity and hardware can provide raw computing power, essential infrastructure for both AI and Bitcoin, and came up throughout ImagineIF’s packed agenda. Tennessee’s role in providing nuclear power, specifically, surfaced quickly as a priority for government officials who live and work in the region.

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“ We have this confluence of one of the most incredible exceptional national laboratories in the nation with a history that goes all the way back to the Manhattan Project,” Hagerty explained to his panel, which included nuclear executive Hash Hashemian and Brandon Williams, Trump’s current undersecretary for nuclear security and the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. “We have the University of Tennessee and we have the Tennessee Valley Authority, the TVA, the largest public utility in America. It controls the generation for all of Tennessee, and it touches on seven other states. We have just a unique ecosystem here that has the workforce, the DNA, the expertise. It has the backing of the state government and local governments to allow for the necessary permitting to make it all work.”

Williams, a former Republican member of the U.S. House representing upstate New York, recently moved to East Tennessee to be better enmeshed in the nuclear industry. 

More presenters gradually painted the picture of expanding Tennessee’s nuclear capabilities to power data centers as an engine for the AI boom via partnerships between the federal government, state government, private industry and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Other attendees included financial giant Cathie Wood of ARK Invest, former assistant secretary of the treasury Luke Pettit, Department of Energy Deputy Sec. James Danly, U.S. Rep. Matt Van Epps, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann and conservative economist Art Laffer, who rose to prominence advising Ronald Reagan and currently lives in Belle Meade. Even star Nashville SC forward Hany Mukhtar showed up briefly, citing his friendship with Roudi.