Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt: Abandon Climate Targets – Let AI Solve the Problem

• Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes AI will outpace preventative climate change measures.
• Schmidt said he would rather let AI solve the problem than constrain the technology.
• Big Tech is racing to make its AI development more climate-efficient.

Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, has called for an end to lofty climate goals as he believes AI will outpace any measures put in place anyway.

The comments come as the rapid rise of AI has forced widespread investment in power-hungry data centers, raising significant concerns about their adverse effects on the climate.

Schmidt Suggests Abandoning Climate Targets

At a Washington AI summit last week, Schmidt said that AI growth will likely overtake preventative climate measures such as more efficient batteries and greener data centers.

“All of that will be swamped by the enormous needs of this new technology,” Schmidt said.

“Because it’s a universal technology, and because it’s the arrival of an alien intelligence… we may make mistakes with respect to how it’s used, but I can assure you that we’re not going to get there through conservation,” he added.

Schmidt told the summit that countries and companies will not meet their climate goals “because we’re not organized to do it.”

“Yes, the needs in this area will be a problem, but I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it and having the problem,” Schmidt said.

Threat of AI

AI technologies, especially those that require large-scale data processing and deep learning, demand significant computational power, which data centers often supply.

These facilities consume vast amounts of electricity to power servers, keep hardware cool, and maintain round-the-clock operations.

Many data centers rely on energy derived from fossil fuels, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbating climate change.

In May 2024, the Electric Power Research Institute found that data centers could use up to 9% of the total electricity generated in the US by 2030.

The Institute said the annual rate of AI electricity usage could range from 3.7% to 15% through 2030, depending on the efficiency of newly built data centers.

This is backed up by a McKinsey report , which said that data centers are expected to consume 35 gigawatts of power annually by 2030, an increase from 17 gigawatts the previous year.

BigTech’s Answer?

Despite Schmidt’s comments, Big Tech has ambitious goals to become greener alongside its rapid development of AI. The ambitions are backed by government-enforced goals to become net zero.

The U.S. government has set a target for the economy to be completely net zero by 2050, with the power sector becoming carbon-neutral by 2035.

Big Tech is investing heavily in renewable energy sources like solar and wind power to offset the energy consumption of their data centers.

In August 2024, Meta signed a deal to buy geothermal power from Sage Geosystems to power its U.S. data centers.

Meta confirmed it would purchase 150 megawatts of geothermal power from Sage Geosystems, roughly enough electricity to power 38,000 homes.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman previously said an energy breakthrough would be needed to sustain the projected rate of AI development into the future.

Altman, a long-time advocate for greener AI, previously invested in renewable energy startup Exowatt. The company aims to provide cheap electricity and thermal power for data centers.