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Bill Gates defended the rapid increase in energy consumption by artificial intelligence systems by arguing that the technology would eventually offset the high electricity consumption.
In a speech in London, Gates urged environmentalists and governments to not “overstate” their concerns in regards to the huge power demands of recent generative AI systems as major technology corporations like Microsoft race to speculate tens of billions of dollars in massive recent data centers.
Data centers would result in a rise in global electricity consumption of two to 6 percent, the billionaire said.
“The query is whether or not AI can speed up a discount of greater than 6 percent. And the reply is: definitely,” says Gates, who co-founded Microsoft and invests heavily in corporations that develop technologies for sustainable energy and CO2 reduction.
In May, Microsoft admitted that its greenhouse gas emissions had increased by nearly a 3rd since 2020, largely on account of the development of knowledge centers.
Gates, who left Microsoft's board in 2020 but continues to function an adviser to CEO Satya Nadella, said that as technology corporations seek recent energy sources, they pay a “green premium” – or a better price – for clean energy, driving its development and deployment.
“The technology corporations are those willing to pay a premium and help ramp up green energy capability,” he said Thursday on the Breakthrough Energy Summit in London.
The Breakthrough Energy group, founded by Gates and whose investors also include Jeff Bezos, Masayoshi Son and Jack Ma, has invested in greater than 100 corporations developing sustainable energy and other technologies to cut back greenhouse gas emissions.
Speakers on the London event included Prince William, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and John Podesta, the United States' leading climate diplomat.
Major technology corporations resembling Microsoft, Amazon and Google have outlined plans to speculate tens of billions of dollars in constructing the computing infrastructure needed to run AI systems in countries around the globe.
But the limited availability of electricity is already posing a challenge for corporations that need to develop the brand new technology.
An April report from the U.S. Department of Energy said AI “is anticipated to be the biggest driver of load growth in U.S. data centers within the near future.”
While corporations like Amazon and Microsoft have signed long-term power purchase agreements with wind and solar energy producers, these contracts “typically don’t match electricity demand on an hourly basis with local resources,” the U.S. agency said. This signifies that “there is no such thing as a guarantee that each one electricity-related greenhouse gas emissions will likely be offset by the contracts.”
In May, the Electric Power Research Institute said data centers could devour as much as nine percent of total U.S. electricity generation by 2030, greater than double their current consumption.
While arguing that technology corporations would drive the expansion of green energy, he said one among his biggest concerns was “getting enough electricity” to fulfill rising demand while making major sectors resembling the cement and steel industries more environmentally friendly.
“The amount of green electricity we’d like for the energy transition is not going to be available nearly as quickly as we’d like it,” he said.
For this reason, the worldwide goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 is more likely to be missed, and it’s argued that “one other 10 or 15 years could be more realistic.
