If AI Is In Trouble, It’s Good For The Environment

What if AI does not need all the electricity it is forecasted to need? What if it uses energy more efficiently than expected? The furious drive to find new ways to generate electricity and to build mammoth server farms may not be necessary. If so, the environment will not suffer the consequences of what would be, at least for some time, additional use of fossil fuels.

Semafor writes, “Microsoft is abandoning several major data center projects in the US and Europe, analysts said, while up to 80% of the hundreds of new Chinese centers built to keep pace with the AI boom are standing unused, MIT Technology Review reported.”

Microsoft Investment

Meta plans to spend $50 billion on AI infrastructure, while Microsoft is closer to $100 billion now. A Softbank group called Stargate plans to make an investment that could total $500 billion. 

As of today, most experts believe that the use of Nvidia chips in server farms is so energy-hungry that the facilities will need to be huge. Meta plans to build one as large as 70 football fields in northern Louisiana. Elon Musk’s xAI has one nearly as large near Memphis. 

Solar And Wind

One of two things could cut the anticipated AI use of electricity. The first is unexpectedly energy efficiency. The other is much lower than expected demand. The strain on the US grid and the need to use fossil fuels while wind, solar, and nuclear energy come online 

The failure of the current Nvidia chip/high energy use model will help cut the greenhouse gases the projects would create.

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