Are claims that AI is accelerating climate change 'overstated'?
One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
One concern around artificial intelligence is its voracious appetite for energy. Electricity demand for data centres specialised in AI will quadruple in the next five years, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency. But as for claims that AI is accelerating climate change through carbon emissions, the report calls them "overstated".
Will this transformative technology guzzle so much gas and coal that it has a devastating impact on our planet? Or will it bring about efficiencies and innovations that allow us to reduce our emissions? Or could some efficiency increases, for instance in the oil and gas sector, actually lead to more emissions?
There is no simple answer, but we thought it would be a good idea to ask one of the lead authors of the report at the International Energy Agency, Thomas Spencer. He spoke to us on Tech 24.
