Climate Change: AI Poses Both Benefits and Risks

Before tech companies can effectively use artificial intelligence to combat climate change, they must first prevent AI from exacerbating the issue.

“It’s absolutely true that AI is an energy-intensive technology,” said Sims Witherspoon, director of climate action at Google DeepMind. “Those technologies will have a carbon footprint until we have a fully clean energy grid.”

Witherspoon made the remarks in an interview on the latest episode of the Bloomberg Originals series AI IRL, which is now streaming.

According to the International Energy Agency, data centers around the world currently account for approximately 1-1.5% of global electricity consumption. But AI requires more energy than other forms of computing. As companies such as Microsoft Corp., OpenAI Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. race to develop increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems, the need for energy will only grow. A peer-reviewed study published in October estimated that the AI industry could consume as much electricity as a country the size of the Netherlands by 2027.

Witherspoon said Google is looking for ways to reduce the computing power needed to train models. It has also developed a carbon control panel with levers that researchers can use to reduce the impact of their experiments. For example, the researcher could transfer the calculation processes to greener energy networks in another region.

While AI’s net impact on carbon emissions remains questionable, Witherspoon said AI can be used in other ways to solve climate problems. “Ecology and biodiversity is a huge area where we can use artificial intelligence,” Witherspoon said, referring to a DeepMind project called Serengeti that uses artificial intelligence to detect and tag animals to help scientists understand migration.

This week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the creation of a new office tasked with funding initiatives in artificial intelligence and other new technologies to combat climate change, among other things. This followed the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, during which world leaders and leaders gathered to discuss AI-based solutions for climate action.