AT&T’s CEO says AI may cause power shortages and it could be ‘the next big social issue in the United States’

John Stankey, AT&T’s chief executive, warned leaders at Fortune’s Global Forum that America isn’t ready for the energy consumption that the AI revolution will take.

“I worry about whether or not we’re going to have enough power to make all that work moving forward,” he said, while suggesting that incoming president, Donald Trump will have to tackle the issue—or risk being voted out. 

“If $5 a gallon gasoline gets people elected or kicked out of office, two years from now, people are going to be looking at the power bill on their house—because there’s going to be a shortage of power and people are going to be consuming it to push the boundaries on AI—and we’re going to be asking ourselves, how did this happen? Why do we not have an approach here for critical infrastructure on power?”

AI demand will exceed power utilities’ capacity by 2027, according to a new study published today by Gartner, a management consulting firm. And it has forecasted that 40% of data centers could face power shortages in the next three years. Goldman Sachs’ research previously estimated that data centers will require 160% more electricity by 2030. “That kind of spike in power demand hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since the early years of this century,” the report warned. Case in point: A single ChatGPT query uses 10 times more power than a Google search, according to the investment bank. 

AI and sustainability at odds 

The other issue with AI being extremely resource-hungry is the setback it could have on net zero commitments and climate pledges from world leaders and business leaders alike. 

“There is no plan on how to produce that much power without driving more greenhouse gasses,” Stankey said. “And I’m not saying that it couldn’t be done if there was a well-thought plan, but there is no plan right now.”

The solution? Stankey points to nuclear power: “I personally don’t see a future that gets us to where we need to get on emissions without some equation of nuclear.” 

“If we don’t start permitting faster than we are right now, we aren’t going to solve that problem—we’re well over eight years off for any kind of reasonable online nuclear power coming out and most people don’t want to go build natural gas power plants right now.”

Who is John Stankey?

The 62-year-old took over as AT&T’s chief executive in July 2020 after nearly 40 years at the Dallas-based telecommunications company.

He began his career at the phone company Pacific Bell, fresh out of college in 1985—just a few years after the first ever clunky laptop hit shelves—and steadily rose through the ranks. 

Soon after the carrier merged with AT&T, Stankey was promoted to chief information officer in 2005 and then to chief technology officer in 2008. After that, the promotions kept coming.

He told Fortune in August that luck and timing, neither of which people have much control over, helped him advance to senior levels. “Do your job and do it well, but don’t let the variables that are related to luck and timing dominate or impact your state of mind,” he said. He added that people should “try to be thoughtful and correct as many of the fundamental decisions as you can, but don’t let it paralyze you.”

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