How do we power the AI boom without blowing past climate goals and breaking the grid?
How do we power the AI boom without blowing past climate goals and breaking the grid? Which approach is the market rewarding? Such questions were central to this year’s Columbia Climate Business and Investment Conference, a joint effort by the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change and Columbia Climate School.
In opening remarks, Bruce Usher, co-director of the Tamer Institute and professor of professional practice at Columbia Business School and Columbia Climate School, set the tone for the half-day event. Climate and business are no longer siloed topics, he said, and the stakes feel especially high when AI is driving a dramatic surge in power demand. “The challenge [of meeting demand] is not only an environmental one, but also an economic one and strategic one,” Usher said. “The race to power the next generation of growth will help shape industries, capital flows, competitiveness and long-term resilience across the global economy.”
Speakers from the featured companies kept circling back to a simple but urgent idea—the next wave of growth depends on electricity that is not only stable, but reliable, clean and fast to build.
Read more at: Columbia Climate School
Google Data Center, Council Bluffs Iowa. (Photo Credit: chaddavis.photography via Commons)
