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Bill Gates advocated the rapid increase in energy consumption caused by artificial intelligence systems, claiming that the technology would eventually offset his large electricity consumption.
In a speech in London, Gates urged environmentalists and governments not to “overstate” concerns about the vast amounts of energy needed to run new generative artificial intelligence systems, as big tech companies like Microsoft race to invest tens of billions of dollars in massive new data. centers.
Data centers will increase global electricity consumption by 2 to 6 percent, the billionaire said.
“The question is, will AI accelerate the reduction by more than 6 percent? And the answer is: sure,” said Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who is a prolific investor in companies developing sustainable energy and carbon-reduction technologies.
Microsoft admitted in May that its greenhouse gas emissions had risen by almost a third since 2020, largely due to data center construction.
Gates, who will leave Microsoft’s board in 2020 but remains an adviser to CEO Satya Nadella, said technology companies will pay a “green premium” — or higher price — for clean energy as they seek new sources of energy, helping to drive its development and deployment.
“Technology companies are the people willing to pay a premium and help jump-start green energy capacity,” he said Thursday at the Breakthrough Energy Summit in London.
Breakthrough Energy, a group founded by Gates and whose investors include Jeff Bezos, Masayoshi Son and Jack Ma, has invested in more than 100 companies developing sustainable energy and other technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The London event featured speakers including Prince William, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and John Podesta, America’s top climate diplomat.
Big tech groups including Microsoft, Amazon and Google have outlined plans to spend tens of billions of dollars to build the computing infrastructure needed to run AI systems in countries around the world.
However, limitations in the availability of electricity are already a challenge for companies trying to build the new technology.
A US Department of Energy report in April said artificial intelligence is “expected to be the largest driver of growth in US data center workloads in the near term.”
While companies such as Amazon and Microsoft have signed long-term power purchase agreements with wind and solar generators, these agreements “typically do not match the hour-by-hour electricity demand of local sources,” the US agency said. This meant that there was “no guarantee that all electricity-related greenhouse gas emissions would be offset” by the agreements.
In May, the Electric Power Research Institute reported that data centers could consume as much as 9 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030, more than double what they use now.
Despite claims that tech companies have led the way in green energy, he said one of his biggest concerns was “getting enough electricity” needed to meet growing demand while cleaning up large sectors like cement and steel.
“The amount of green electricity we need for the transition is not going to show up nearly as quickly as we need it to,” he said.
Because of this, the global goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 was likely to be missed, with the argument that “another 10 or 15 years might be more realistic.“.
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