China, India, and the Energy Cost of AI

China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. It is also, by a wide margin, the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles, and it installs more renewable capacity each year than any other country.

That is why Cary argues western cooperation with China on climate is unavoidable. The world cannot cut emissions without China cutting its own, and it cannot easily build clean energy at the speed required without the supply chains China dominates. Political tension makes this hard, but the arithmetic does not go away.

India's situation is different again. It is the world's most populous country, with energy demand that is still growing fast as incomes rise, and it relies heavily on coal for electricity today. At the same time, it has set ambitious targets for renewable capacity and a long-term goal of net zero emissions by 2070.

The conversation stresses that India will follow a path of its own, not a copy of Europe's or China's. Balancing growth, energy access, and emissions at India's scale is one of the defining challenges of the century.

Cary and Amaira also discuss artificial intelligence. Training and running AI models takes a great deal of electricity, mostly in data centres. The International Energy Agency estimates data centres used around 1.5 percent of the world's electricity in 2024, and expects that to roughly double by 2030, with AI a major driver.

That raises two questions. Where will the extra power come from, and will it be clean? And what happens to the workers whose jobs AI may displace? The conversation asks what it would take to offset both costs, the environmental one and the human one.