AI's Hunger for Power Can Be Tamed
Current models are like a ‘rocket engine on a bike,’ but tech firms could change that.
The artificial intelligence hype that made Nvidia Corp. the world’s biggest company has come with a price for the world’s climate. Data centers housing its powerful chips are gorging power and belching carbon dioxide, and sobering figures now reveal the extent of the problem. Data centers will use 8% of US power by 2030, compared with 3% in 2022, according to a recent report from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., as their energy demand grows by 160%.
AI is currently doing more to worsen the climate emergency than solve it, as some AI firms have touted.1So great are the energy needs that utilities are extending their plans for coal plants, while Microsoft Corp. is building gas and nuclear facilities to keep its servers humming.