The International Energy Agency, a respected global analyst of energy trends for the past 50 years, has launched a new initiative on the rising energy consumption by data centers to power AI.'The rise of artificial intelligence has put the electricity consumption of data centers in focus, making better stocktaking more important than ever,' the IEA said in its midyear update report on global electricity trends released Friday.
In Ireland, for example, the IEA reported that 18 percent of electricity demand came from the data sector in 2022. In Singapore, data centers used up about 7 percent of the nation's electricity.Tech companies are scrambling to secure new energy sources and arrange transmission lines for new data centers as energy becomes a potential bottleneck to growth and the race for AI dominance.