Report: AI’s Rapid Growth Threatens Energy Industry, Climate Stability

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The tech sector’s decarbonisation goals are challenged by Artificial Intelligence (AI) power demands, with Google reporting a 48 per cent increase in carbon emissions over the last five years, a BBC report has said.

AI and electric vehicles are expected to add significant electricity demand to the US grid, potentially leading to energy shortages and increased energy bills.

The growth of AI has come on so strong and so fast that it threatens to destabilise the energy industry, the economy, and the climate, the report said.

“AI-powered services involve considerably more computer power – and so electricity – than standard online activity, prompting a series of warnings about the technology’s environmental impact,” the BBC reported.

Indeed, a recent study from scientists at Cornell University found that generative AI systems like ChatGPT use up to 33 times more energy than computers running task-specific software. Furthermore, each AI-powered internet query consumes about ten times more energy than traditional internet searches.

This runaway increase in power consumption as AI picks up speed poses a direct threat to the tech sector’s ability to make good on its decarbonisation promises.

 While Google hasn’t budged from its net-zero by 2030 goals, the company has admitted that, “as we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging.”

“Altogether, the global AI sector is expected to be responsible for 3.5 per cent of the world’s electricity consumption by 2030. In the United States, data centres alone could consume a whopping 9 per cent of electricity generation by 2030.

“That represents a two-fold increase of current levels. That punishing growth rate will have major implications for national energy security, not to mention the economy, “it added.