Axios Live: Connecting AI and energy ecosystems could benefit the grid, leaders say
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Attendees sitting at the table for the dinner discussion. Photo: Tracy Eason for Axios
HOUSTON – Critical bottlenecks in U.S. power generation are endangering abilities to meet rapidly increasing demand from data centers and win the global AI race, industry leaders said at an Expert Voices roundtable alongside CERAWeek.
Why it matters: Meeting growing needs while maintaining reliability will require coordinated action across the entire energy system.
Axios' Amy Harder and Chuck McCutcheon moderated the March 22 roundtable discussion, which was sponsored by EY.
Here are 5 takeaways from the conversation.
- Decoupling the AI ecosystem from the electric grid infrastructure would mean everybody loses, Emerald AI founder and CEO Varun Sivaram said.
- Emerald AI and Nvidia are working with leading U.S. energy companies to create "flexible" data centers that can increase or decrease their power use during times of strain on the grid.
- "The next generation of AI data centers, even if it has on-site generation, should be able to give back to the grid, give back to communities, help keep rates affordable and help to achieve grid reliability," Sivaram said.
- To get back to a functional and healthy energy system the U.S. needs to actually be able to develop more energy, said Will Jordan, EQT Corporation chief legal and policy officer.
- "All of this depends on infrastructure," he added.
- Data centers need to be part of the broader energy infrastructure, said David Porter, EPRI vice president of electrification and sustainable energy strategy.
- "Data centers can bring great value to the grid," he said.
- AI can help solve some of the interconnection problems the grid is facing, said Amazon Web Services director of product and energy Benjamin Wilson.
- "One of the things we have trouble with is interconnection," he said, adding that they are trying to figure out how to "leverage the AI we're building … to be able to go and help solve those problems."
- On the policy front, permitting reform remained at the top of the wish list for many attendees.
- "Of course, we want to see things like permitting reform," TerraPower president and CEO Chris Levesque said. "But I think having policy that really pays attention to system-wide efficiencies is huge."
Content from the sponsor's remarks:
In his introductory remarks, EY global energy-to-intelligence leader Jay Persaud said that their firm aims to help address the new challenges the AI era has brought across energy, power, water and regulation.
- "For the last couple of years, we've been working on the ecosystem of AI, the supply of AI. And I guess you could say the AI challenge today is really an energy challenge," he said.
