AI will be help rather than hindrance in hitting climate targets, says Bill Gates

Fri, 28 Jun, 2024 - 01:00

Jillian Ambrose and Alex Hern

Bill Gates has claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) will be more of a help than a hindrance in achieving climate goals, despite growing concern that an increase in new datacentres could drain green energy supplies.

The philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder told journalists that AI will enable countries to use less energy, even as they require more data centres, by making technology and electricity grids more efficient.

Gates downplayed fears over AI’s climate impact amid mounting concerns that the tech breakthrough could lead to a rise in energy demand and require more fossil fuels as a result.

“Let’s not go overboard on this,” Gates said.

“Data centres are, in the most extreme case, a 6% addition [in energy demand] but probably only 2% to 2.5%.

"The question is, will AI accelerate a more than 6% reduction? And the answer is: certainly.”

A query run through the AI chatbot tool ChatGPT needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search, according to estimates by Goldman Sachs, which could mean that carbon emissions from data centres more than double in the decade between 2022 and 2030.

Some expert estimates have claimed that an increase in the number of AI data centres could cause electricity demand to rise by up to 10% in developed countries, after years of declining energy due to greater efficiency.

Gates told journalists at a London conference hosted by his venture fund Breakthrough Energy that the extra demand created by AI data centres was more likely to be matched by new investments in green electricity because tech companies were “seriously willing” to pay extra to use clean electricity sources in order “to say that they’re using green energy”.

“The tech companies are the [ones] willing to pay a premium, and to help bootstrap green energy capacity,” he added.

Breakthrough Energy has invested in more than 100 companies involved in the energy transition.

Gates is also a big investor in AI via the Gates Foundation, which invests about a third of its $77bn (€72bn) wealth in Microsoft.

In turn, Microsoft is the largest external investor in ChatGPT creator OpenAI, and has built a suite of AI tools into its Windows operating system under the brand Copilot.

The power use of a data centre is only part of the concern about the carbon impact of AI.

In Microsoft’s own emissions reporting, the company says its “scope three”, or indirect, emissions have been trending in the wrong direction, in part because of the impact of building new data centres around the world — a task that cannot yet be done using renewable electricity.

Gates’s warning came a week after a global report found that, despite a record rise in renewable energy in 2023, consumption of fossil fuels also climbed to a new record high as a result of steadily rising demand.