Artificial Intelligence: Emissions

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

Not being from DESNZ, I will ask somebody from that department to give the noble Earl a specific answer on that project, but we will look for where there are sources of energy as we think about where to place data centres. The recent call for expressions of interest in AI growth zones has had more than 200 expressions of interest. They will be considered on the basis of where the energy is available, or could be available, and how we can ensure that we get a clean energy supply to data centres.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister consider leading a review into the PUE measure for data centres? The power usage effectiveness measure has been around for some time now. Does he consider it to be effective and the optimal way of measuring the impact of data centres from an energy perspective?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that important question, on which I have had discussions with him before. I think it is an important way of measuring it, but the new AI Energy Council is looking at all forms of link between energy and AI. It is worth also noting that the advances in technology mean that the energy consumption is dropping for many of the approaches to new compute and data centres. In fact, some of the chips being designed now may reduce the energy consumption between hundredfold and thousandfold. There is a need to keep an eye on this and to think about what the appropriate way is to measure both the energy consumption and, as the noble Lord rightly says, the broader environmental impact, including water usage.