How Big Oil Became the AI Industry's Favorite Customer

Artificial intelligence companies are deepening their ties with the fossil fuel industries as some of the biggest names in the tech world make massive deals with energy companies, both to power their energy-hungry data centers and to embed machine learning into the energy sector itself. Already, the artificial intelligence boom is causing a natural gas surge in the United States, and experts expect that data center hyperscalers will greatly extend the life of fossil fuels in the global energy mix, even as the world continues to shatter clean energy growth records. This Monday, OpenAI – the firm behind ChatGPT – made a deal with Abu Dhabi's ADNOC “to deploy advanced AI capabilities across the state energy firm's operations,” according to reporting from Reuters. The report noted that the agreement “mark[s] the latest step in the ChatGPT maker's deepening ties with the United Arab Emirates.”But the trend extends far beyond just one firm and one country. Globally, AI firms are racing to make products designed for some of the richest pockets in the world – oil and gas companies. A recent report from nonpartisan global news outlet Semafor notes that the OpenAI-ADNOC deal “was the highest-profile example in a broader push at ADIPEC by tech companies to pitch bespoke, AI-driven tools to help operate drilling rigs, refineries, and other oil assets.”What is more, the deepening ties between AI and fossil fuels goes both ways. Big Tech is planning data centers faster than global power grids can keep up. Plus, legislation under the Trump administration has pushed tech companies to provide their own energy sources to power new planned data centers, leaving Silicon Valley scrambling to add energy production capacity by any means necessary. While this includes funding research and development of next-gen clean energy technologies like nuclear fusion and space-based solar power, in practice it has translated to massive natural gas contracts.At present, Amazon is constructing a gas-fired power plant in Texas that, if completed according to the current plan involving the development of seven natural gas plants, will be the single-biggest source of power-related emissions in the entire United States. In August, AI giant Nvidia announced that it would partner with Japan’s SoftBank and the United States federal government to build the largest fossil-fuel plant in the country in order to power an Ohio project by OpenAI. Microsoft, too, just signed a 20-year deal with Chevron to provide 2.67 gigawatts of natural-gas-fired power for a proposed West Texas data center.AI advocates argue that in the long run, AI will save more energy than it consumes thanks to efficiency gains across all of the sectors that use it. However, those gains are a double-edged sword. A recent paper published by NPJ Climate Action found that, if fossil fuels make economic gains anywhere above zero thanks to AI integration, enabled emissions will exceed avoided emissions. In a scenario where both the fossil fuel and the renewables sector benefit equally from AI gains, global CO2 emissions will still increase by between 0.47 billion tons and 1.8 billion tons a year. “On the smaller side it's about the emissions of Mexico annually,” Holly Alpine, one of the co-authors of the research, was recently quoted by the Wall Street Journal.Despite NPJ Climate Action’s sobering warning, AI firms are tripping over themselves to court fossil fuel companies and secure long-term contracts with economic heavyweights in Big Oil. The OpenAI-ADNOC deal is not the first of its kind, but the high-profile nature of the agreement is indicative of the direction that the sectors as a whole are heading – and it’s not good for anyone’s bottom line but their own. By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.comAmerica’s Nuclear Revival Is Running Into a Fuel Supply WallWall Street’s “Energy Transition” Funds Are Packed With Natural GasThe U.S. Has $50 Billion for Nuclear Waste and Nowhere to Put It