Energy Sourcing & Sustainability
From renewable PPAs to the nuclear renaissance: how AI data centers are securing 24/7 carbon-free power.
Renewable Integration
Data centers now account for a third of all renewable Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in Europe.
Solar
Wind
Storage
Nuclear Renaissance
Tech giants are turning to nuclear power for reliable, 24/7 baseload energy to support continuous AI operations.
MicrosoftThree Mile Island
GoogleSMR Development
AWSNuclear Co-location
Carbon Emissions Lifecycle
Training vs. Inference Impact
Training Phase
Intense, sustained energy spikes. GPT-4 training consumed ~50 GWh.
40% Lifecycle Emissions
Inference Phase
Lower per-query energy, but massive cumulative volume over time.
60% Lifecycle Emissions
Mitigation Strategies
- •Model Quantization: Reducing precision (FP8/FP4) can save up to 90% energy.
- •Carbon-Aware Scheduling: Shifting workloads to times/regions with cleaner grids.
- •Hardware Efficiency: Specialized accelerators improving "Intelligence per Watt".