The UK has set ambitious targets to increase the capacity of its energy grid to meet the intense demands of its similarly ambitious AI growth agenda.
The AI Energy Council, a joint initiative from the Technology and Energy Departments, recently suggested a goal of the energy grid being able to handle a twenty-fold increase in compute usage over the next five years.
To examine if and how the UK will be able to meet these demands, UKTN spoke to Oliver Sartor, chief economist at energy demand firm Voltalis.
Sartor first argued that assigning a number to the increased energy demands of AI over the next five years is already more challenging than it seems.
“How high will the AI ambitions actually be?” he asked. “Because that will condition how much energy we need and also how efficient AI will be.”…
