Billionaire climate tech investor and co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates believes that artificial intelligence will advance energy transition and pay for itself for its association with greenhouse gas emissions.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Gates said that AI would make data centres more efficient, reducing their future power demands. He projected that AI may eventually consume up to 6% of global electricity, surpassing today’s estimated 2%, but he dismissed estimates exceeding 10% as incorrect.
The comments come in after AI faces increased scrutiny amid speculations that it will raise energy needs drastically.
In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg TV, Gates also spoke of the potential for carbon capture in reaching net zero and said that removing emissions from the atmosphere is a limited solution because of its costs.
“There are companies that we’ve funded out there that have the possibility to get to $50 and below, but that’s kind of a brute force solution that you want to save for the most hard-to-abate sectors,” he said, referring to the per ton price of carbon abatement. The key will be to get the cost to “well below $100 a ton,” Gates said.