Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the potential to solve some of the thorniest problems facing humanity, including the challenges of climate change. But at the same time, the technology - in particular, generative AI - uses a vast amount of computational power, and consequently a huge amount of energy. This is a problem, and one which is only going to grow.
The amount of computing power required for cutting-edge AI models is doubling every five or six months, and it’s reasonable to imagine that it will continue to increase as demand for the technology booms. Data centers already consume up to 1.5% of the world’s electricity supply, and energy consumption is responsible for around 75% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions in the EU.
