Bill Gates says not to worry about AI gobbling up energy, tech will adapt
- Reference: 1719592393
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/06/28/bill_gates_ai_power_consumption/
- Source link:
The Microsoft founder was speaking at an event in London hosted by his [1]Breakthrough Energy venture fund this week, and reportedly said AI would enable everyone to use less energy by making technology and electricity grids more efficient.
"Let's not go overboard on this," he said. "Datacenters are, in the most extreme case, a 6 percent addition [to the energy load] but probably only 2 to 2.5 percent. The question is, will AI accelerate a more than 6 percent reduction? And the answer is: certainly," [2]Gates said .
[3]
However, the billionaire contradicted himself in a [4]Bloomberg TV interview , saying that AI could one day cause bit barns to use as much as 6 percent of global electricity, but felt estimates above 10 percent were wrong. AI will make datacenters more efficient, he insisted, so they will eventually account for a smaller share of future power demand.
[5]
[6]
Research by [7]Goldman Sachs [PDF] and the [8]Electric Power Research Institute forecast that on present trends, datacenters in the US could account for up to 9 percent of all electricity used by 2030, while [9]Arm CEO Rene Haas put the figure at 20 to 25 percent – though he was trying to sell Arm's technology as a solution.
The Register has also reported regularly on the growing energy consumption of those bit barns thanks to the compute-intensive processes used to train AI models and the beefier servers crammed full of powerful GPUs that are required to perform the work.
[10]
One report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) [11]warned that global electricity demand from datacenters could double by 2026, and picked out Ireland where it said unchecked growth in bit barn power consumption could see them using 32 percent of the country's total electricity by 2026.
[12]Microsoft founder Paul Allen's tech museum closes, sells off collection
[13]Gates-backed nuclear plant breaks ground without guarantee it'll have fuel
[14]Elon Musk has beef with Bill Gates because he shorted Tesla stock, says biographer
[15]Bill Gates' nuclear power plant stalled by Russian fuel holdup
Bill G also said at the event in London that the energy puzzle will solve itself because the extra demand created by AI datacenters is likely to be matched by new investments in green electricity as technology companies are willing to pay extra to use clean electricity sources "to say that they're using green energy,".
The issue though isn't just about electricity consumption. Microsoft itself disclosed earlier this year that it had [16]increased carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 30 percent since 2020 , blaming this on the construction and provisioning of more datacenters that it needs to meet customer demand for online services, including AI.
Breakthrough Energy is said to have invested in more than 100 companies developing sustainable energy and other technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As well as being founded by Gates, it counts Jeff Bezos, Masayoshi Son, and Jack Ma as investors.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has [17]backed a company called Numenta and its Thousand Brains project, a general AI framework that aims to reverse engineer the human neocortex. Numenta was founded by Jeff Hawkins of Palm fame. ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.breakthroughenergy.org/
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/27/ai-bill-gates-climate-targets-datacentres-energy
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zn8yf1VhB2GIoh7Q36tmwgAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-26/bill-gates-says-ai-will-advance-green-tech-offsetting-its-emissions
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zn8yf1VhB2GIoh7Q36tmwgAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zn8yf1VhB2GIoh7Q36tmwgAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/generational-growth-ai-data-centers-and-the-coming-us-power-surge/report.pdf
[8] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/data-centers-could-use-9-us-electricity-by-2030-research-institute-says-2024-05-29/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/ai_datacenters_unsustainable/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zn8yf1VhB2GIoh7Q36tmwgAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/iea_report/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/paul_allen_museum_closes/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/11/terrapower_nuclear_plant/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/11/gates_musk_beef_biography/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/16/gates_nuclear_power_russia/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/16/microsoft_co2_emissions/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/05/a_high_five_for_stanford/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Trust
Well, he got very lucky twice so he must know something.
Another interesting comment of his I picked up the other day: without Paul Allen the PC revolution wouldn't have happened. That ignores Woz entirely, along with all the designers of the kit Microsoft Basic ran on, Gary Kildall, assorted non-Microsoft Basics and numerous other contributors. It was a bandwagon already underway when they jumped onboard.
technology will adapt
How's that Patch Tuesday regime going, Bill?
Oh yes, 640MW is enough for anyone!
Well played, sir.
How about not reporting on EVERY stupid thing some billionaire says?
Sadly, many of these dolts hob nob with our elected (and otherwise) leaders at Davos, etc., so while annoying, its probably a good idea to keep an eye and ear on them.
Bye the bye, Bill's hustling nuclear power "solutions" these days, so he's hardly a disinterested party. More energy use? Bill swoops in to the "rescue."
Let's just hope his nuke doesn't need a Patch Tuesday. . .
Nothing this man says comes from a good place, he is not, in my opinion, an honest man.
Boot loops will be kinda interesting ... hence icon
You do realize they run the world, right?
And their mistakes and gaffes have very real, and often deadly consequences for the rest of us plebes, right?
That's why.
Good old Bill. Wants to save the planet unless it’s something that serves him.
"Good old Bill. Wants to save the planet as long as it’s something that serves him."
There, fixed that for you.
But it can never adapt to 0 watts of draw
Which is right where it should be.
So it's fine the super-wealthy tell us what to do from their private jets and air conditioned mansions with heated pools; as they invest in energy sapping nonsense.
Yet we're supposed to feel bad. No thanks.
Simplistic Statistics
Guess BG has been tutoring poor(!) Rishi: We have slashed 11% inflation to just 2% so love me - don't mention that still means what we pay is 13% or more than we used too..
The object is not to cut an increase. That solves nothing.
Trust
How, or why could anyone trust this dweeb?