Energy-guzzling AI is also the future of energy savings

livemint.com:

Artificial intelligence data centers are becoming so ravenous for power that they threaten to max out electricity grids. Yet one of the technology’s least glamorous uses—finding ways to pinch pennies on energy bills in homes and commercial buildings—could ease the crunch. Industry leaders think that AI has the potential to change everything from how cancer is diagnosed to the way advertising campaigns are created.

But training AI models on huge data sets sucks up a lot of power. Even a simple ChatGPT request uses nearly 10 times more electricity than a regular Google search, according to the International Energy Agency. This week, the chief executive of chip-design company Arm warned that, unless energy savings are found, AI data centers could consume up to 25% of America’s power by 2030, compared with 4% today.

Ironically, using AI might be the best way to find these energy savings. And if the technology can fix one of humanity’s more mundane problems—how to keep air-conditioning units and lighting at an optimal setting at all times—it would make a significant dent in the amount of power used in buildings. Real estate is a heavy and wasteful user of energy.

According to the IEA, the operation of residential and commercial buildings accounts for 30% of global energy use, and about a third of that is squandered. Wastefulness is often caused by crude building operating systems that set the heating or cooling facilities to come on and off at a specific time each day, regardless of the outside air temperature or how many people are using the building. Offices have become especially inefficient.