The Dirty Energy Powering AI

Why It Matters

Council on Foreign Relations

News

4.2 • 876 Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What powers artificial intelligence (AI)? As global electricity use is surging, with unprecedented demand coming from an increase in data centers, AI’s dependence on fossil fuels presents a serious issue for the planet. In the United States, data center power usage is on track to double by 2030, largely due to the proliferation of AI technology. But while the application of AI shows potential to mitigate climate problems, will its power grab stall the clean energy transition? Featured Guests: Varun Sivaram, Senior Fellow for Climate and Energy, CFR For an episode transcript and show notes, visit us at https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/wim/dirty-energy-powering-ai

Transcript

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0:00.0	AI is here to stay, and as global superpowers all plow forward with its development,
0:09.0	something has become more and more obvious.
0:13.0	Powering AI takes energy, a lot of it.
0:16.0	And at the moment, much of that energy comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gas emissions.
0:22.9	This puts an enormous amount of pressure on electrical grids around the world and complicates
0:28.1	the path we must take towards building cleaner and more sustainable energy systems.
0:33.7	I'm Gabrielle Sierra, and this is why it matters. Today, will the emergence of AI stall the clean energy transition?
0:47.8	AI has been the topic of conversation for a while now, right?
0:52.6	It's dominating discussions about the future of work,
0:56.0	the future of creativity and writing, and even the future of the truth as we know it. So here we are.
1:02.6	We're talking about AI and the future of our climate. How do those two things overlap?
1:08.5	Well, we're talking about an AI revolution that could transform our modern economy.
1:14.6	And the surge of power demand from the rise of AI, this AI revolution, threatens many of our
1:21.1	climate and clean energy goals.
1:23.9	This is Varun Siverum.
1:25.8	He is a senior fellow for energy and climate at CFR.
1:29.3	And he's leading our new Climate Realism Initiative.
1:33.3	AI could transform the way we drive by enabling autonomous vehicles.
1:37.3	It could transform the way we work by automating or transforming various types of work,
1:43.3	such as the legal profession or the medical
1:45.1	profession. But AI also comes with a dark underbelly in order to run the computers. That power
1:53.4	AI training, the training of these models, or the use of these models known as AI inference,
	...

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