Bill Gates, co-founder of technology giant Microsoft, sees enormous potential in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in areas such as education advancement, medical progress and climate change mitigation. However, he also expresses concern about the rapid rate of development of this technology, highlighting the jump from GPT-2 to GPT-4. While new technologies have always emerged in the past, their capabilities tended to be limited and took several generations to fully develop. With the development of GPT-4, Gates believes a so-called plateau has been reached. Nevertheless, he admits that he was wrong in the past and that this could well happen again.
During his interview with Handelsblatt, Gates emphasized the need to first solve problems with back-end costs and accuracy. In it, he pointed to the high cost of certain AI chips from Nvidia, which cost up to $30,000 each and consume large amounts of power. However, the actual cost of using AI has been falling, he said. In addition, he said, chip availability is currently limited, but he expects alternative chips from companies such as AMD, Amazon, Google and Microsoft to hit the market soon.
In Bill Gates opinion, AI doesn’t necessarily require a lot of energy. In fact, all data centers combined consume only four percent of the world’s electricity. However, some companies are working on new technology to improve energy efficiency. Gates is confident, however, that the share of total electricity needed for data centers will never reach ten percent.
He also plans to invest in 100 companies through his company Breakthrough Energy that can use AI to help improve the power grid. Gates sees AI as a helpful resource in improving climate models and developing new crops. Still, more electricity will be needed in the future, for example, to run cars, heat buildings and produce green hydrogen. As a result, the existing power grid will have to carry a much higher capacity, which is an immense challenge for all countries.
Gates emphasizes that protecting forests in African countries, Indonesia and Brazil is critical to combating climate change. At the same time, he stresses the need for innovation in climate protection, for example in the form of green steel, cement and transport products, which must not be more expensive than conventional products. For Gates, a CO₂ tax or strict regulation is not necessary if these goals are achieved.
Gates recommends that the German government find ways to lower the cost of electricity and heat pumps. He notes that renewable energy is insufficient in very cold weather and raises questions about alternatives such as nuclear fusion or atomic energy. A company he co-founded plans to power data centers that enable AI with new nuclear power technology.
