Why artificial intelligence and clean energy need each other

To win the race, the US is going to need access to a lot more electric power to serve data centers. AI data centers could add the equivalent of three New York Cities' worth of load to the grid by 2026, and they could more than double their share of US electricity consumption--to 9%--by the end of the decade. Artificial intelligence will thus contribute to a spike in power demand that the US hasn't seen in decades; according to one recent estimate, that demand--previously flat--is growing by around 2.5% per year, with data centers driving as much as 66% of the increase. Energy-hungry advanced AI chips are behind this growth. Three watt-hours of electricity are required for a ChatGPT query, compared with just 0.3 watt-hours for a simple Google search.