Artificial Intelligence: Emissions

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

The current estimate for 2024 was something like 7 terawatt hours of consumption; if we go forward to 2050, that is expected to be something like 62 terawatt hours, but, as I have just mentioned, the advances in technology may change that. There is a lot of uncertainty around the requirements. It is worth noting that, over the same time period, the increase in energy consumption from many other areas, including from electric vehicles, means that the proportion taken up by data centres, even if there is no technology improvement, is probably something like 10% of the total.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, the House will note my directorship of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. For the diminishing number of people who still believe that diminishing Britain’s 0.8% of global CO₂ still further is an undertaking worth having, I bring good news: the amount of CO₂ to be released from UK data centres will be close to zero because, with energy prices in the UK some three times higher than in the US, double the price of much of mainland Europe, notably Switzerland, where this is a developing industry, I very much doubt we will have any—or we will have very few—energy-hungry AI centres. Could the Minister give some assurance that we will not simply be reliant on expensive unreliables into the future, and pursue a sensible energy policy for the UK?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

The question of renewable energy is of course an important one. Last year, 50% of the energy was provided by renewables, about 30% from gas and the rest from nuclear and other sources, and, as I said, the consumption of energy by AI and data centres will not rise to about more than about 10% of that under current projections. It is the case that many places across the UK have expressed an interest in becoming an AI growth zone. It is also the case that many data centre providers are interested in coming to the UK, so there is a good chance of getting a large number of data centres here in the UK.