Published: 03 July 2024
Global enterprises are facing the challenge of rapidly increasing electricity consumption driven by AI and GenAI, which threatens to disrupt energy availability and lead to shortages. This document provides recommendations for executive leaders to prepare for and mitigate this risk.
AI and generative AI (GenAI) are driving rapid increases in electricity consumption, with data center forecasts over the next two years reaching as high as 160% growth.
Future forecasts on energy consumption caused by AI diverge between a conservative outlook, i.e., the world’s grid will be able to manage growing demand, and a challenging one, i.e., data center costs will rise rapidly, and the supply of electricity will be scarce, forcing alternate strategies.
The search for energy supply is on now, with major cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) building data centers near a nuclear power
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Analysts:
Jorge Lopez, Bob Johnson, Bill Ray, Joseph Unsworth, Keith Harrison
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