Mike Stark, who took over as president of Scotland’s electrical trade association Select last week (6th June), said that the UK’s National Grid could struggle to satisfy the voracious energy needs of artificial intelligence (AI) and the systems it supports.
The 62-year-old, who is director of data cabling and networks at facilities management firm OCS M&E Services, joins a growing number of experts who have warned about the new technology’s appetite for electricity, which is often greater than many small countries use in a year.
And he questioned whether the UK’s current electrical infrastructure was fit for purpose in the face of the massive increase in predicted demand, not only from the power-hungry data centres supporting AI but also from the continued rise in electric vehicle (EV) charging units.
Mike Stark said: “AI is becoming more embedded in our everyday lives, from digital assistants and chatbots helping us on websites to navigation apps and autocorrect on our mobile phones. And it is going to become even more prevalent in the near future.
“Data centres, which have many servers as their main components, need electrical power to survive. It is therefore only natural that any talk about building a data centre should begin with figuring out the electrical needs and how to satisfy those power requirements.
“At present, the UK’s National Grid appears to be holding its own, with current increases being met with renewable energy systems. But as technology advances and systems such as AI are introduced, there will be a time when the grid will struggle to support the demand.”
He said that it is estimated that there could be 1.5 million AI servers by 2027. Running at full capacity, these would consume between 85 and 134 terawatt hours per year – roughly equivalent to the current total energy demands of Netherlands or Sweden.
He added: “I remember attending an EV training session about 25 years ago and the standing joke was, ‘Where’s all this electricity going to come from?’ We all felt the network needed upgrading then, and now there is extra pressure from the new AI data centres springing up.”
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