Fossil Fuels Initially Needed for AI Boom, Nuclear Expert Says

The rise of artificial intelligence will drive a surge in electricity demand that’ll initially be met by fossil fuels, before nuclear replaces that source, the head of a body advising Japan’s top utility said.

As data centers are built in countries like the US and Japan, more natural gas will be needed in the short term as power demand is “rising so fast that we will not have time to build nuclear plants initially,” Dale Klein, chairman of the nuclear reform monitoring committee for Tokyo Electric Power Co., told Bloomberg TV. Klein is also a former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.