AI and Frontieras Converge As Demand for Energy Consumption Expected to Rise 10+ Fold
As the Artificial Intelligence industry continues to boom, global energy demands will rise significantly in response. The next generation of Artificial Intelligence technologies will increase that demand even further. Frontieras is positioned to meet those demands.
February 12th, 2024
Written by Matthew McKean, CEO and co-founder of Frontieras North America (LinkedIn)
2024 will be recognized as the coming out party for artificial intelligence. Built on advanced data algorithms to create original content, generative AI is rapidly transforming a variety of industries and has the potential to unlock immense value in terms of productivity.
Generative AI can be found on your desktop under the names ChatGPT, Google Bard and Microsoft Copilot. As individuals tap into the potential of AI, the need for power and water rises astronomically as data centers execute complex AI models requiring immense computational power, translating directly to energy consumption. In a nutshell, the rise of AI will strain an already distressed energy market:
Data scientist Alex de Vries at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands recently published his findings stating by 2027 server farms could use anywhere between 85 to 134 terawatt hours of energy per year. That amount of estimated energy needed represents 0.5 percent of the entire globe's energy demands or the annual electricity use of Argentina, the Netherlands, or Sweden.
At the most recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman suggested that the AI models of tomorrow may require even more power — to the degree they'll need a whole new power source. "There's no way to get there without a breakthrough," Altman told audiences at the conference.
You may ask how AI can consume so much power? In order for generative AI to function at a level that is currently available, it is broken into two parts – Training and Inference. Training involves exposing the AI to vast amounts of data, which must be stored and processed. This storage and processing requires significant energy, especially for complex models with billions of parameters. Inference represents the second leg of the equation. Once the training has occurred, the AI needs to perform complex mathematical calculations that are repeated millions of times to understand and respond to user queries. This requires energy every time the AI query generates text, images, or other outputs.
This demand for increased energy has the broader industry, including the very companies that are delivering the various forms of generative AI, working to strike a balance between innovation and environmental responsibility. This is where Frontieras North America can step in and address the energy shortage. Frontieras’ clean technology is built around a zero-waste approach that repurposes the captured volatiles, lowers the carbon footprint, and reduces CO2 emissions. In addition to the environmental benefits, this allows the production of FASCarbon to comply to changing regulatory demands and create more efficient fuels.
In 2023, I coined the term of Energy to Business (E2B) to illustrate the hidden value energy plays in our society’s advancement. Frontieras North America, formed more than 10 years ago, was built to deliver available, abundant, and affordable energy. Frontieras’ state of the art FASForm process maximizes the yields of hydrocarbons to extract solid, liquid, and gas forms of energy.
The commercialization of AI has accelerated the need for more energy. Without a sound answer for where this energy is going to come from, the industry has talked about addressing this shortfall with a multipronged approach, including: 1.) optimizing AI models to be more efficient, 2.) investing in renewable energy sources for data centers, 3.) and exploring alternative computing architectures.
While I am not an expert on AI modeling and computing architectures, my management team and I are leading experts in the energy market space. The idea wind and solar will produce enough power is comical. The messaging appeals to the broader audience, however the truth of the matter is that green energy cannot produce the volume needed today and in the future. The technology is not there. Here are three key points illustrating these shortcomings:
Intermittency: Both wind and solar power are inherently intermittent, meaning their generation fluctuates based on external factors like wind speed and sunlight availability. This poses a challenge in meeting consistent and predictable energy demands, especially during peak hours or periods of unfavorable weather. Grid integration with other sources like natural gas or energy storage solutions becomes necessary to compensate for these fluctuations.
Land and Resource Requirements: Wind and solar farms require significant land areas for installation, potentially conflicting with other land uses and raising concerns about ecological impact. Additionally, solar panel production involves using specific materials with limited availability, raising questions about scalability and potential resource constraints.
Transmission Infrastructure: Integrating large-scale wind and solar farms into existing grids often requires upgrading or expanding transmission infrastructure. This can be expensive and time-consuming, particularly for remote locations with high renewable energy potential but limited existing infrastructure.
Frontieras’ clean technology and use of coal as a feedstock is poised to play a critical role in every aspect of our lives, including the continued evolvement of AI and other new energy-dependent technology. To learn more about Frontieras North America’s FASForm facility and zero-waste energy technology, please watch the following video for a virtual walkthrough of our first upcoming facility in Mason County, West Virginia.
My next blog will touch on the growing need for energy security. Specifically, I will focus on evaluating the value of Frontieras FASForm within both developing and developed countries and the role government plays to help achieve abundant, affordable and available energy.
These perspectives on the global energy market are my own. If you are interested in learning more about Frontieras, its FASForm technology or the Frontieras management team, please visit www.frontieras.com