Lack of electricity supply is a big problem in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and has been a concern for countries with developed industries.
Solar panel system in Jakarta, Indonesia, May 3. Photo: AFP
Advanced industries such as electric vehicles, data centers, AI, AI semiconductors, secondary batteries... in which countries around the world and large technology companies are fiercely competing to capture market share, all have one thing in common: they require a huge amount of electricity.
Power shortages at certain times are happening in advanced industrialized countries where people have not had to worry about electricity for decades.
In the United States, where not only large technology companies but also high-tech manufacturing industries are concentrated, the risk of power shortages is happening sooner than other countries. In Arizona, there are concerns that the current grid will not be able to meet demand within the next 10 years, leading to grid security issues.
In the state of Georgia, where factories of Korean companies such as SK, Hyundai Motors, Hanwha are concentrated, it is predicted that electricity consumption could increase 17 times compared to current levels in the next 10 years.
There are currently 2,562 data centers in the United States, accounting for more than 38% of all data centers worldwide. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the electricity consumption of data centers in the United States is expected to increase rapidly from 130 TWh (Terawatt hours) in 2022 to 390 TWh in 2030. This is equivalent to the electricity needs of one-third of all households in the United States.
The US and other developed countries have quickly come up with solutions to deal with the proliferation of data centers and their power consumption. As early as January 2023, the Virginia state legislature (USA) proposed a law to limit the construction of additional data centers while Virginia is known as the “Global Data Center” with nearly 5% of the world's data centers.
Meanwhile, the City of London (UK) has established a "Data Center Task Force" in 2022 and begun to carefully review the licensing of new data center construction in this country.
Meanwhile, Singapore and the city of Amsterdam (Netherlands) have temporarily stopped building additional data centers.
To cope with the power shortage, countries have accelerated the replacement of fossil energy with natural renewable energy such as solar energy, wind energy, etc. New data shows that renewable energy has reached a record level, accounting for 30% of the world's electricity in 2023. The above figure raises hope that global greenhouse gas emissions are about to peak.
The 2023 renewable energy “milestone” is driven by a boom year for wind and especially solar, with China, Brazil and the Netherlands leading the way in rapidly rolling out the transition to renewables.
China alone accounted for 51% of new solar capacity and 60% of new wind capacity, even as it continues to build massive amounts of new coal capacity.
“Old-fashioned” fossil fuels cannot compete with “exponential innovations and ever-decreasing cost curves in renewables and storage,” said Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN climate change agency.
Over the past two decades, the use of solar and wind energy has surpassed expectations and grown much faster than expected, rising from just 0.2% of global electricity generation in 2000 to 13.4% in 2023.
The race to develop AI in industrialized countries is currently accelerating, with the goal of accelerating artificial intelligence to serve development in all fields. This means that the shortage of electricity is becoming more and more severe. From there, the race to develop renewable energy, limiting fossil energy is getting faster and faster. However, the consequences of solar panels and wind power equipment when they expire are also issues that need to be concerned about in the future.
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, which means artificial intelligence or artificial intelligence. This is a field in the field of computer science . It is intelligence created by humans with the goal of helping computers automate intelligent behaviors like humans. |
HN synthesis
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