These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy

A new report issued by the International Energy Agency is digging to energy and AI details, and I think it is worth looking at some data to help clarify matters. Here are four plans of the report summarizing the decisive points about artificial intelligence and energy demand.

1. Artificial intelligence is hunger, and the world will need to increase electricity supply to meet the demand.

This point is the most obvious, but it carries a repetition: artificial intelligence explodes, and will lead to a high energy demand from data centers. “Artificial intelligence has moved from the academic endeavor to industry with trillion dollars at stake,” as the executive summary of the IA’s report places.

Data centers have been used less than 300 hours of electricity in 2020. This may increase to approximately 1000 TERWATT hours in the next five years, which is more than total electricity consumption in Japan today.

Today, the United States has about 45 % of the world’s data center capacity, followed by China. These two countries will continue to represent the vast majority of capabilities until 2035.

2. The electricity needed to operate databases will largely come to fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas in the near term, but nuclear and renewable energy can play a major role, especially after 2030.

The IEA report is relatively optimistic about the possibility of renewable energy sources in energy data centers, with nearly half of the global growth by 2035 will meet with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy. (In Europe, IEA projects, renewable energy sources will meet 85 % of the new demand.)

In the near term, natural gas and coal will also expand. An additional 175 hours of terawatt of gas will help to meet the demand in the next decade, to a large extent in the United States, according to IEA projections. Another report, published this week, is proposed by “Energy Consulting” Bloombergif Fossil fuels will play a greater role From IEA projects, two -thirds of the additional electricity generation are between now and 2035.

Nuclear energy, preferred for major technology companies that look forward to energy operations without generating huge emissions, can start to get a devery after 2030, according to IEA data.

3. Data centers are only a small part of the expected electricity demand growth in this contract.

We must talk more about devices, industry and EVS when we talk about energy! The demand for electricity increases from a full range of sources: electric cars, air conditioning and devices all Paying the demand for electricity more than data centers from now to the end of the contract. In total, databases are slightly more than 8 % of the expected electricity demand from now to 2030.