December 19, 2011 - With the public release of iOS 18.2, many new features of Apple Intelligence went live, theNorth Americaelectrical powerReliability Corporation (NERC) issued a warning that theAI(AI) The explosion in adoption could put the U.S. and Canada at risk of widespread blackouts as early as next year.
NERC, the nonprofit regulator of the North American electricity industry, is concerned about the surge in data center electricity use brought on by artificial intelligence services such as ChatGPT and Apple's private cloud-based computing servers, according to the Financial Times. The agency predicts that data center electricity use will double over the next four years, and the grid will likely struggle to keep up with this rate of demand growth.
In its Long-Term Reliability Assessment report, NERC stated.Power demand is growing at an unprecedented rate, and data centers driving AI services are a major contributor to this phenomenonNorth America's power grid is facing "serious reliability challenges" as generation fails to keep up with the surge in power demand caused by artificial intelligence. The North American power grid is facing "serious reliability challenges" as generation cannot keep up with the surge in demand for electricity caused by artificial intelligence. This oversupply could lead to blackouts in both countries as early as next year at peak times.
1AI notes that the report is in line with projections from the International Energy Agency. The IEA has predicted that data centers alone will use more than 1,000 terawatt-hours of electricity by 2026, twice as much as in 2022.
More grimly, the phase-out of fossil-fueled generation has not been compensated for by the addition of renewable generation at the same rate.NERC says the Midwest may bear the brunt of this, but virtually all parts of the U.S. and Canada are likely to experience severe blackouts within the next decade.