Search engine searches for more power: Google to pay huge bill for AI Centers' electricity

Facebook Tweet LinkedIn

To help Google achieve its ambitious climate goals, the company has announced it will invest $800 million in a fundraising round for Intersect Power, which will provide customers with green energy and battery storage.

This initiative, the company says, will support Google’s AI work and that of competitors as realization grows that AI could cause a surge in energy pollution if its data centers use fossil fuel-driven electricity. The new system will be part of energy parks, something mostl large tech companies have embraced. As Bloomberg reports, “The energy parks would provide a much-needed reliable source of power as aging U.S. grids struggle to meet demand from artificial intelligence and electrification of homes, vehicles and factories.”

These systems, however, are not without challenges. One is the transportation of energy, which is increasingly fragile under the U.S.’s shaky power grids, and unless the energy parks are completely self-contained, electricity must be moved from one place to another.

Funding problems
Another issue is renewables themselves. Wind energy has run into infrastructure and funding problems; next-generation nuclear plants are still in early testing; and although there have been moves to revive some decommissioned reactors, such as Three Mile Island, the number of these is negligible.

Meanwhile, there is no single forecast that alternative energy will completely replace fossil fuels in this century. And at the same time the energy hunger from AI will surge, possibly to unmanageable levels.