Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warns of AI superintelligence outpacing Earth's energy limits: 'Chips will outrun power needs'
As the world marvels at the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence—writing code, diagnosing illnesses, even composing symphonies—an unexpected crisis is taking shape behind the scenes. The real limit to AI's growth, it turns out, may not be algorithms or microchips but something far more elemental: electricity.
In a striking episode of the Moonshots podcast, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt offered a sobering assessment of the future of AI. 'AI's natural limit is electricity, not chips,' he declared. Schmidt, who now chairs the Special Competitive Studies Project, a pro-AI think tank, explained that the U.S. alone may need an additional 92 gigawatts of power to sustain its AI ambitions—a demand equivalent to building 92 nuclear power plants. For perspective, only two such plants have been constructed in the U.S. over the past three decades.
As companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and Google sprint toward artificial general intelligence (AGI)—machines with reasoning capabilities that rival or surpass human intelligence—their growing appetite for energy is becoming impossible to ignore. 'We need energy in all forms… and we need it quickly,' Schmidt emphasized during a recent testimony before Congress. This is not just a theoretical concern. Microsoft has already signed a 20-year nuclear power deal to revive the shuttered Three Mile Island facility, while Sam Altman of OpenAI has invested heavily in Helion, a fusion energy startup. Meanwhile, tech companies are snapping up water rights and power contracts in a desperate bid to keep their servers cool and their models humming.
In fact according to a report from Quartz, Microsoft's 2023 environmental report revealed a 34% spike in water use, totaling 1.7 billion gallons—just to cool its AI-driven data centers. By 2027, AI workloads could require enough water to serve all of Canada for a year, according to researchers.
This surge in energy and resource consumption is igniting broader fears. Environmental groups like Greenpeace warn that AI's unchecked growth could derail national and international climate goals. And yet, the lure of 'superintelligence'—AI so advanced it could transform medicine, law, defense, and scientific research—is too great for companies and investors to resist. 'We don't know what AGI or superintelligence will ultimately deliver,' Schmidt admitted, 'but we know it's coming. And we must plan now to make sure we have the energy infrastructure to support it.' The tension is real. On one hand, AI promises to solve global challenges. On the other, its development could strain—and possibly break—the very systems it aims to improve. The irony is poignant: machines designed to think like humans may one day need more power than humanity can afford to give. AI has long been portrayed as the brain of the future. But Eric Schmidt's warning makes it clear: without electricity, there's no intelligence—artificial or otherwise. As society edges closer to superintelligence, perhaps the more pressing question isn't how smart our machines will become, but whether we'll have enough power to keep them running.
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