Wed, May 28, 2025 page8

• Power concerns loom over AI hopes

  • By Harun Talha Ayanoglu
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  The Computex trade show in Taipei last week was, without question, the most dynamic iteration I have attended. The exhibition was markedly more crowded than in previous years, and artificial intelligence (AI) took center stage. The emerging technology was not merely a theme, it was the foundation of nearly every showcase. Its presence extended beyond coding and technical tools; it had clearly embedded itself into everyday life and industrial applications.

  AI-enabled robotics, modular data centers and intelligent computing systems were everywhere. Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech introduced the rise of “agentic AI” and the advent of physical AI, laying out a vision where machines learn, plan and interact with the real world autonomously.

  Perhaps most telling of AI’s cultural penetration is that even Pope Leo XIV, in his first formal address, identified AI as one of the defining challenges of our time. Similar to the concerns of his predecessor, Pope Francis, the new pontiff called for ethical oversight to protect human dignity, justice and labor in an age of algorithmic decisionmaking.

  As I walked the exhibition halls of the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, surrounded by remarkable innovations, one question popped up in my mind: How do we power all this? The excitement gave way to a sobering reality — Taiwan’s energy security remains highly vulnerable, and meeting the growing power demands of AI will be a daunting challenge without significant strategic adjustments.

  On May 17, just a few days before Computex, Taiwan shut down the nation’s last operational reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, ending more than four decades of service.

  In response to rising energy concerns, the Legislative Yuan passed a proposal only three days later to hold a referendum on restarting the reactor. The main reason for the move is clear: Taiwan’s energy consumption is growing, and the resources to support that growth are increasingly uncertain.

  Most of Taiwan’s power generation comes from imported fossil fuel, making the nation highly vulnerable to price shocks and geopolitical risks. Nuclear power, which contributed 4.7 percent of electricity generation last year, is in steep decline. On the other hand, renewables, despite their increasing share, account for just 11 percent of total generation.

  That is well below the 20 percent target set for this year by former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). As the pace of renewable deployment has not matched the rate of nuclear phaseout, the resulting gap is being filled by coal and liquefied natural gas.

  One of the consequences of that imbalance was revealed last year. Despite having endorsed sanctions on Russia, Taiwan became the fifth-largest buyer of Russian coal. That was not because of a change in Taiwan’s political stance, but because soaring energy demand left the nation little choice. As renewable energy failed to close the supply gap, geopolitical entanglements deepened.

  Growing energy insecurity curbs Taiwan’s ability to reach the government’s net zero goals and exposes the broader fragility of its high-tech economy. Taiwan’s status as the world’s leading semiconductor producer and, naturally, a key player in AI infrastructure, means its energy policies have global significance, as the chips enabling next-generation AI systems require energy-intensive manufacturing.

  Additionally, the energy consumption of AI itself is rapidly expanding. As reasoning models and large-scale inference systems become standard, the electricity required to train, deploy and maintain such platforms is increasing logarithmically. It is no longer possible to separate questions of AI developments from those of energy policy.

  Therefore, Taiwan must confront a difficult, but necessary, conversation about its energy future. Sustainable development in the AI age cannot be achieved without a reliable, scalable and diversified energy mix. Regardless of politics, nuclear energy has historically provided a stable, low-emission source of electricity. Decommissioning the last reactor without equally robust alternatives, deepens the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and exacerbates its vulnerability to external shocks.

  Reconsidering nuclear energy should not be a matter of being for or against it. It must be approached pragmatically, with the understanding that energy security is not just an environmental or economic issue, but a matter of national resilience. Taiwan’s ability to sustain its role in the global technology landscape depends as much on electricity as it does on innovation.

  This year’s Computex demonstrated Taiwan’s brilliant potential in shaping the AI-driven future. However, that future will require more than computing power. It will demand a resilient and sustainable energy policy to fuel its groundbreaking technology. Without it, the promise of progress might be undermined by the power needed to sustain it.

  Harun Talha Ayanoglu is a research associate at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies.
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