Britain’s multibillion-pound push into artificial intelligence will require reliable supplies of natural gas as well as low-carbon power, according to Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang.
Speaking in London during Donald Trump’s state visit, Huang warned that high UK electricity prices remain a “challenge” in the “near term” for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s AI ambitions.
Nvidia – valued at more than $4trillion – announced plans with CoreWeave and UK start-up Nscale to invest £11billion in Britain, bringing 120,000 of its most powerful AI processor chips to the country.
The investment, part of a “technology prosperity deal” with the US, is expected to trigger a building blitz of supercomputers and data centres.
However, Mr Huang warned the AI revolution will need a huge amount of power.
“I am also hoping that gas turbines are going to also contribute” to Britain’s AI infrastructure alongside nuclear and renewables, Huang told the Telegraph.
“It takes energy to build new industries,” he said, predicting there would be “a lot of motivation and incentives to want to bring more power to bear.”
The prospect of AI companies requiring new gas turbines in Britain will present a challenge to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who has banned future exploration in the North Sea.
With UK operators already reliant on expensive imports, any new fleet of gas turbines to power AI data centres could put energy security and climate targets on a collision course.
Huang said Nvidia would put £500million into Nscale and supply thousands of chips for its facilities worldwide.
Although he pledged to build “the most energy efficient computing systems” and back small nuclear reactors, Huang cautioned that some AI operators may “become power generators themselves” with on-site capacity.
He argued that “you need energy to train the [AI] model” so that breakthroughs such as improved climate prediction or advances in nuclear fusion can ultimately offset the energy needed to create them.