Big Oil wants to help Big Tech power artificial intelligence data centers

Exxon Mobil and Chevron are leaping into the race to energy synthetic intelligence knowledge facilities, as the 2 oil majors wager tech firms will in the end flip to pure fuel to fulfill their super power wants.

Exxon unveiled plans this week to construct a pure fuel plant to energy a knowledge middle. The oil main says it might then use carbon capture and storage know-how to scale back the emissions of the plant by 90%.

“We’re working with different giant cap industrials to quickly deploy an answer that would offer each excessive reliability and low carbon depth energy to fulfill the rising demand for computing energy for synthetic intelligence,” Exxon Chief Monetary Officer Kathryn Mikells informed Wall Road analysts Wednesday with out disclosing names of the businesses’ the oil main is working with on the venture.

The fuel plant wouldn’t depend on the electrical grid and could be unbiased of utilities, permitting sooner set up than conventional energy era initiatives, Mikells mentioned. Exxon has not disclosed a buyer or a timeline for the venture.

Exxon has invested closely in constructing a carbon seize community alongside the Gulf Coast with greater than 900 miles of pipeline to move CO2 from a number of industrial prospects to everlasting storage websites. The oil main estimates decarbonizing AI knowledge facilities might symbolize as much as 20% of its complete addressable marketplace for carbon seize and storage by 2050.

Chevron can be engaged on methods to energy knowledge facilities, mentioned Jeff Gustavson, president of the oil firm’s new power enterprise, on the Reuters NEXT convention on Wednesday.

“That is one thing that our firm may be very properly positioned to take part in,” Gustavson mentioned. Chevron is a serious nationwide fuel producer with energy era tools and really giant tracts of land that might be used for knowledge facilities, the manager mentioned.

Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have primarily purchased wind and solar power for his or her knowledge facilities as they search to mitigate the affect of their companies on the local weather. However the energy wants of artificial intelligence are growing so large that the tech firms are looking for sources of electrical energy which can be extra dependable than renewable power.

The tech firms have proven a rising curiosity in nuclear energy as a consequence. Microsoft helps to carry the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor again on-line by buying energy from the plant. Amazon and Alphabet’s Google unit are investing in next-generation, small nuclear reactors. Meta lately referred to as on firms to ship it proposals to build new nuclear plants.

However the fossil gasoline trade and power analysts have argued for months that the tech sector will in the end have to embrace natural gas as a result of nuclear crops merely take too lengthy to construct.

Exxon CEO Darren Woods took a swipe at nuclear energy Wednesday and claimed his firm is best positioned than any within the U.S. to fulfill the ability wants of AI within the fast and close to time period.

“In case you’re betting on nuclear and one thing coming down the street, there is a lengthy street forward of us,” Woods informed Wall Road analysts on Wednesday. The small nuclear reactors that tech firms are investing aren’t anticipated to achieve commercialization till the 2030s.

Exxon shouldn’t be trying to begin an influence era enterprise, the CEO mentioned. The corporate plans use its experience main giant initiatives to assist set up energy era for knowledge facilities within the early levels of the AI ramp up, Woods mentioned.

As soon as the early ramp up is finished, Exxon will deal with trapping and storing emissions related to knowledge facilities, and supplying decarbonized pure fuel to the ability crops that run AI, Woods mentioned.