Two Fossil Fuel Companies Are Betting Big on Data Centers
Fossil fuel companies like Williams and Chevron are increasingly partnering with data centers to meet the massive energy demands of the artificial intelligence boom. While this provides a new revenue stream for oil and gas firms, environmental advocates warn that it undermines efforts to phase out fossil fuels.
Why it matters
The intersection of AI growth and energy infrastructure highlights a significant conflict between technological advancement and climate change mitigation goals.
But the artificial intelligence boom is also giving fossil fuel companies a new industry to sell their gas, pipelines, and power plants to: data centers. Two American oil and gas companies, Williams and Chevron, are presenting that demand to investors as a huge win.
Data centers are becoming “a big driver for both power and gas demand in the US,” says Ashish Sethia, the global head of commodities and energy at BloombergNEF. The group published a report last week that found that increased demand for natural gas by the mid-2030s, driven partly by data centers, means that the US would need to increase production by 36 percent.
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