7 January 2026
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Artificial intelligence is causing a gigantic increase in demand for energy as well as water. But there is also another side of the coin: AI - if deployed properly - can also contribute to accelerating the sustainability transition. Change Inc. charts the potential.
A geothermal hotspot under the Nevada desert, just 800 meters below the earth's surface. Geothermal energy could potentially substantially change the US energy supply, reports CNN. More important: the Nevada source was not discovered by chance, but with artificial intelligence.
The American startup Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals uses AI to analyze vast amounts of data and locate undiscovered geothermal hotspots. Professor James Faulds sees potential to unlock "dozens and perhaps hundreds of gigawatts" of geothermal power this way, in the western US alone.
It's a textbook example of the one thing AI can do much better and faster than us humans: process and analyze massive amounts of data. That can come in handy in all sorts of ways. For example, those analyses can be used to make predictions, for example about the climate.
This spring, an international team of data scientists, meteorologists and climate experts launched AI model Aurora. That is trained to accurately predict air quality, ocean waves and extreme weather. This will help us better prepare for the effects of climate change. The NASA also applies AI in this way to predict weather and climate.