ATLANTA — A Georgia Power report says the growing number of data centers could cause the demand for electricity across the state to increase much more than previously thought.
Channel 2′s Michael Doudna went through the report and learned the energy demand could triple by the mid-2030s. Over the same time, at least 20 data centers will be built.
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“If you put thousands of machines, say 10,000 computers, it’s going to get hot,” Emory Professor Rajiv Garg said. “They need cooling power, they need processing power.”
A big reason behind the increase in data centers is the increase in the use of artificial intelligence. The new technology requires more power, as according to Garg, just one Chat GPT search uses the same energy as 10 Google searches.
“AI is going to be phenomenal, but we need to learn how to use AI efficiently as well,” Garg said.
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So, to meet the demand, Georgia Power and other electric companies will need to meet the supply. However, both Georgia Power and Garg say once the output is increased, prices should not continuously rise even with the increased demand.
“The price will eventually come back to that equilibrium point,” Garg said.
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