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Energy and Climate
BRUSSELS — The European Union should force tech giants to invest in clean energy supply to meet the rising power needs of their data centers, the bloc’s green transition and competition chief told POLITICO.
European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera warned that the electricity-hungry infrastructure that powers artificial intelligence is increasingly straining power grids, creating fierce competition for energy and threatening to drive up bills.
“It's been a shock and it is happening at a very high speed,” she said. “In 2022, when we were trying to identify how to become fully electrified and clean, we did not count on such a big additional demand of electricity… and no matter how fast we go in planning the grids, in planning new green energy capacity, the demand is mounting at a very high speed. So this creates some tensions.”
