Korean Media: The US Lags Behind China in AI Power Supply!
On March 10, the South Korean media "Global Economy" published an article stating that China has shown an advantage over the United States in the "power issue," which is considered a key factor in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). It is evaluated that the U.S. Donald Trump administration's opposition to "renewable energy" hindered the growth of AI.
Recently, Bloomberg reported that China continues to maintain a global leading position in the competition for AI dominance by relying on its grid technology.
China's new power generation capacity reached 543 gigawatts (GW) last year. Since 2021, the power generation capacity added has exceeded the total capacity of all power generation facilities built in the United States so far. It is expected that the United States will add 606 GW of installed capacity between 2023 and 2030, while China's new installed capacity is expected to reach 3,482 GW, more than five times the scale of the United States.
The key point is that power supply may affect the future competition pattern between the two countries in the AI field. Since AI data centers consume a large amount of electricity, the issue of power supply has been regarded as a fundamental "bottleneck" restricting AI development. At an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang used a five-layer cake analogy to explain AI competitiveness and pointed out: "Looking from the bottom layer (energy), China has twice the energy reserves of the United States."
The actual power supply capabilities of the United States and China can also be reflected by the proportion of data centers in the total electricity volume of both countries. Data shows that 38% of the increase in electricity demand in the United States from 2024 to 2030 will be contributed by data centers, while China only accounts for 6%. Based on the full-scale application of AI by 2030, the proportion of electricity consumption by data centers in the overall electricity demand of the two countries will be 7% for the United States and 2% for China.
Analysts believe that the difference between the two countries stems from investment in renewable energy. China is continuously expanding its renewable energy power generation scale. Last year, the solar power generation capacity reached 1,200 GW, and it is expected that the solar power generation volume this year will exceed coal power generation volume.
In contrast, the expansion plan for the U.S. power supply has been repeatedly delayed. Although the Trump administration viewed AI as a new engine for economic growth in the United States, it opposed renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. Although the U.S. government's concept was to fill in with coal and natural gas, in the power stations planned for expansion by the United States, 90% are based on renewable energy, making the practical possibility very small. At the same time, due to grid bottlenecks, there are difficulties in expanding power generation facilities and connecting data centers, which is also an issue.
Samantha Gross, head of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution, said: "In the AI industry, we emphasize the time required for power input because it directly relates to a key variable determining the growth rate. The core is the availability of power supply, not semiconductor supply."
Original: toutiao.com/article/1859274567056394/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.