Gates countered that the additional demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps and green steel manufacturing all “far outweigh the current phenomenal demand for data centers.”
 "Bill Gates says AI will advance green technology and offset emissions")
In a wide-ranging interview, Gates also discussed the potential for carbon capture to help the world reach net zero, saying removing emissions from the atmosphere is a limited solution because of its cost. Photo: BloombergBloomberg
Siobhan Wagner and John Fuller
Billionaire climate change tech investor Bill Gates has said that AI will “pay for itself” in terms of associated greenhouse gas emissions because it will help drive the energy transition.
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Gates said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that AI will help data centers become more efficient and reduce their share of future electricity demand. Gates said AI technology could use 6% of the world's electricity in the future, up from the current estimate of 2%, but he feels estimates of more than 10% are wrong.
Gates' comments come after AI has come under increased scrutiny amid expectations that it will dramatically increase energy demand: In some parts of the world, demand from data centers already exceeds available electricity supplies, a trend that threatens to upend entire nations' energy transition plans.
Gates countered that the additional demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps and green steel manufacturing all “far outweigh the current phenomenal demand for data centers.”
The Microsoft co-founder is in London this week for a three-day summit for his venture fund, Breakthrough Energy, which has invested in more than 100 companies working on the energy transition.
In a wide-ranging interview, Gates also spoke about the potential for carbon capture to help the world reach net zero, saying removing emissions from the atmosphere is a limited solution because of its cost.
“Some of the companies we've funded could go below $50, but that's kind of a brute force solution and something we want to reserve for the areas that are hardest to abate,” he said, referring to the price per tonne of carbon reductions.
Getting the costs down to “well below $100 a tonne” will be key, Gates said, adding that he pays $200 a tonne to offset his own emissions.
