Billionaire climate tech investor Bill Gates. — Bloomberg
LONDON: Billionaire climate tech investor Bill Gates says artificial intelligence (AI) will “pay for itself” when it comes to its associated greenhouse gas emissions, as the technology will help push forward the energy transition.
AI will make data centres more efficient, helping them represent a smaller share of future power demand, he said in a Bloomberg TV interview.
Gates said the technology may one day use as much as 6% of global electricity – more than the estimated 2% today – but felt estimates above 10% were wrong.
His comments come after AI has received increased scrutiny amid expectations that it will dramatically raise energy needs.
In some parts of the world, demand from data centres is already outstripping the available power supply, a trend which threatens to upend the energy transition plans of entire nations.
Gates countered the additional demand from electric cars, heat pumps, and green steel manufacturing will all “dwarf even this amazing demand for data centres now.”
The Microsoft co-founder is in London this week attending a three-day summit for his venture fund Breakthrough Energy, which has invested in more than a hundred companies involved in the energy transition. — Bloomberg
