AI

Although artificial intelligence (“AI”) dominated financial, technological, and even social conversations in 2024, less attention was paid to the reality that AI’s emergence entails substantial increases in energy demand, specifically electricity. Consider that a single ChatGPT query requires 2.9 watt-hours of electricity, compared to 0.3 watt-hours for a Google search, according to the International Energy Agency. Data centers housing tens of thousands of square feet of computing hardware power AI technology, and Goldman Sachs Research estimates those data centers will see power demand grow 160% by 2030, when these facilities will use an estimated 8% of all U.S. power.