Green hydrogen tech boss warns of AI energy consumption risk

The chief technology officer of Ceres Power has warned that as artificial intelligence tools become more widely used for efficiency, there is a risk that this could result in even higher energy consumption.

"What scares me is the energy consumption if you're using ChatGPT [for simple queries]," Caroline Hargrove said during an "IOT: Powering the Digital Economy" panel on the new energy landscape.

Hargrove is CTO of Ceres Power, a developer of clean energy technology, including electrolysers for green hydrogen.

An International Energy Agency report, published in January, highlighted that on average a typical Google search uses 0.3 watt-hours of electricity versus 2.9 watt-hours for a ChatGPT request.

The report suggested that when this technology is incorporated into 9 billion searches daily, it would require nearly 10 terawatt-hours of additional electricity a year.  

More broadly, the IEA's report said that by 2026, the "AI industry is expected to have grown exponentially to consume at least ten times its [electricity] demand in 2023."

Hargrove said if this consumption was not managed properly "then the perverse effect could happen that we use so much more energy."

"So as much as I'm a big fan in using the data to really optimize everything, we should use it to reduce our consumption, but the perverse effect can happen when you have a new toy and, and people getting behind it at [such] a rate," she said.

Mary de Wysocki, chief sustainability officer at technology company Cisco, made a similar point in that it was important to be "responsible users of [AI] where we know where can add the benefit and not just use it because it's potentially fun."

Meanwhile, Bertrand Piccard, founder and chairman of the environmental non-profit