These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy

A new report from the International Energy Agency digs into the details of energy and AI, and I think it’s worth looking at some of the data to help clear things up. Here are four charts from the report that sum up the crucial points about AI and energy demand. 1. AI is power hungry, and the world will need to ramp up electricity supply to meet demand. This point is the most obvious, but it bears repeating: AI is exploding, and it’s going to lead to higher energy demand from data centers. “AI has gone from an academic pursuit to an industry with trillions of dollars at stake,” as the IEA report’s executive summary puts it. Data centers used less than 300 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2020. That could increase to nearly 1,000 terawatt-hours in the next five years, which is more than Japan’s total electricity consumption today. Today, the US has about 45% of the world’s data center capacity, followed by China. Those two countries will continue to represent the overwhelming majorit ... Read full article.