The coming boom in artificial intelligence represents both a threat and an opportunity for the clean energy transition, market experts suggest.
No longer purely in the realm of the tech sector, AI has in recent years become an energy industry issue. The expected rapid rollout of the energy-hungry data centres needed to power the AI revolution has captured the attention of everyone from natural gas drillers to electricity grid operators to renewable energy developers.
“AI is very, very energy-hungry. Anything you do with AI consumes a lot of power,” said Ed Crooks, vice-chair for the Americas with international data and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, at the Energy Disruptors: Unite conference in Calgary on Wednesday.
“If you’re talking about creating an image with AI … that uses about 10,000 times the power as a simple Google search.”
According to the International Energy Agency, the world’s data centres consumed roughly 1.4 to …