Billionaire tech pioneer and climate investor Bill Gates believes artificial intelligence (AI) will ultimately have a positive impact on efforts to combat climate change, despite concerns about its energy consumption. In a recent Bloomberg interview, Gates shared his optimistic outlook on AI’s role in advancing green technologies and offsetting its own emissions.

Gates sees AI making significant contributions to scientific breakthroughs in clean energy and sustainable food production.

“The big breakthroughs come when I teach you about material science, like, okay, I can make a solar cell without using silicon, or I can grow food very efficiently, you know, in a laboratory using fungi or some other approach,” he explained.

Addressing concerns about AI’s growing energy demand, Gates put it into perspective: “The additional electric demand from electric cars, we change that over or electric heat pumps, we change that over or steel manufacturing, all of those dwarf even this amazing demand for datacenters.” He anticipates AI’s energy use will remain manageable, stating, “It’s not going to go above 10%.”

Gates is confident that tech companies will prioritize green energy solutions.

“Those tech companies are probably sensitive to wanting to even pay a bit extra to use green energy of any electrical customer in the country,” he noted. “So, they’ll help push the green technologies forward.”

Ultimately, Gates believes AI will justify its energy consumption through its contributions to climate solutions: “So I think on balance, when it comes to emissions, it will pay for itself. Absolutely.”

Regarding concerns about a potential AI bubble, Gates distinguished the current situation from past tech booms.

“These multiples aren’t as high as they were, say, during the Internet bubble,” said Gates. “And the growth is real. I mean, AI is not pets.com. This is something very, very fundamental.”

His confidence in AI’s potential is reflected in the massive investments being made by tech giants, including his own company Microsoft.

Featured image: Credit: Bloomberg