Nvidia & Deloitte: AI's Dual Role in Climate Action at COP29

As the global community gathers for COP29, AI emerges as both a promising solution and a potential challenge in the fight against climate change.

Whilst AI’s potential to help climate change is being realised, so are concerns about its environmental footprint.

Recent studies indicate a dramatic surge in AI-related energy consumption, with data centre power demand projected to reach 2,000 terawatt-hours by 2050, while simultaneously major tech companies report significant increases in their greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet, AI's transformative potential in advancing sustainability initiatives cannot be ignored.

From optimising energy grids to enhancing disaster prevention systems and revolutionising digital agriculture, AI technologies are proving instrumental in driving environmental innovation.

This complex dynamic sets the stage for critical discussions at COP29, where world leaders and industry experts must navigate the delicate balance between harnessing AI's benefits for climate action while mitigating its environmental impact.

A recent report by Deloitte, titled "Powering Artificial Intelligence: A study of AI's environmental footprint," highlights the dual nature of AI in the context of climate change.

Sustainable AI development 

The study predicts that AI adoption will significantly increase data centre power demand, potentially reaching 2,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2050, accounting for 3% of global electricity consumption.

This projected increase in energy consumption has raised concerns among climate experts.

According to the UN's Greening Digital Companies 2024 report, leading cloud providers with significant AI involvement have reported a 62% rise in greenhouse gas emissions since 2020 and a 78% increase in electricity usage since 2023.

Josh Parker, Senior Director of Legal – Corporate Sustainability at Nvidia emphasises that existing data centre infrastructure is becoming dated and less efficient: “The data shows that it’s 10x more efficient to run workloads on accelerated computing platforms than on traditional data centre platforms.
“There’s a huge opportunity for us to reduce the energy consumed in existing infrastructures.”

Innovations in energy efficiency

Despite concerns over AI's energy consumption, industry leaders are actively working to improve energy efficiency in AI operations.

Nvidia is at the forefront of these efforts.

Josh highlights the company's focus on energy-efficient data centre operations: "We see a very rapid trend toward direct-to-chip liquid cooling, which means water demands in data centres are dropping dramatically right now," he explained.

Josh also emphasises the efficiency gains in AI computing.

"The trend in energy efficiency for accelerated computing over the last several years shows a 100,000x reduction in energy consumption.

“And just in the past 2 years, we've become 25x more efficient for AI inference. That's a 96% reduction in energy for the same computational workload," he says.

“Accelerated computing is actually the most energy-efficient platform that we’ve seen for AI but also for a lot of other computing applications.”

AI as a tool for sustainability

Beyond improving its own efficiency, AI is increasingly being leveraged to enhance sustainability across various sectors.

The technology is being used to optimise energy grids, improve disaster prevention through early warning systems and enhance digital agriculture practices.

In the manufacturing sector, AI-powered digital twins are helping companies reduce energy consumption.

Josh notes: "In manufacturing, we're seeing around 30% reductions in energy requirements if you use AI to help optimise the manufacturing process through digital twins".

The COP29 Green Digital Action Declaration, set to be launched at the conference, aims to commit endorsers to leveraging digital tools for climate action, incorporating climate resiliencies into digital infrastructure and mitigating the environmental impact of digitalisation.

Nvidia is also using digital twins in its Earth-2 that is an AI-powered climate digital twin platform that uses advanced simulations to predict weather patterns and climate changes, aiming to enhance disaster preparedness and mitigate economic losses.

As discussions at COP29 continue, the focus remains on balancing AI's potential benefits with its environmental impact.

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