How to balance energy-hungry AI with the drive towards decarbonisation

IT IS a strange coincidence that as humanity attempts to slash its carbon emissions, it is also rushing to develop a technology that could, in theory, consume an unlimited amount of energy.

Dabbling in counterfactuals is a dangerous game, but you can picture a world in which, having chosen to start tackling climate change properly in the 1990s, we would be just wrapping up the gentle path to net-zero emissions in time for an artificial intelligence boom fuelled by green power. Instead, we find ourselves at risk of running a 21st-century technology on a 20th-century energy supply.

If you live…