{"id":464521,"date":"2026-06-06T21:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T21:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/464521\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T21:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T21:38:09","slug":"ai-could-drive-advances-that-solve-the-problems-it-brings-computer-scientist-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/464521\/","title":{"rendered":"AI could drive advances that solve the problems it brings, computer scientist suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"University<\/p>\n

\nUniversity of Auckland computer science lecturer and technology consultant Ulrich Speidel.
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Luka Forman\n<\/p>\n

A computer scientist says artificial intelligence itself could drive advances that compensate for the high energy needs of the technology.<\/p>\n

A report out this week<\/a> from the United Nations University says AI could be consuming three percent of the world’s electricity by 2030.<\/p>\n

University of Auckland’s Dr Ulrich Speidel said AI allows a large amount of data to be crunched, and that could help with making the technologies used for generating and storing electricity more efficient.<\/p>\n

Speidel said there are two technologies, in particular, where inroads could be made with the help of AI.<\/p>\n

One is improving the efficiency of solar photovoltaic cells. He said currently, about a quarter of the energy that hit a solar panel from the sun was converted into electricity.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, if we could bring that percentage up, then existing areas used for solar farms with new types of panels could generate a lot more electricity compared to what they were able to generate beforehand.”<\/p>\n

AI could also help with making gains in future battery technologies, where research is ongoing, he said.<\/p>\n

“I could well see that artificial intelligence might actually be accelerating that by allowing people to go through more possible combinations of battery chemistry without actually having to build batteries.”<\/p>\n

Another aspect where AI’s energy footprint could be improved is the amount of power consumed by artificial intelligence systems themselves, he said.<\/p>\n

“If you’ve got access to a tool like AI, that’s actually able to crunch a large amount of numbers and able to go through a lot of potential technologies and the potential ways of making semiconductors more efficient, then again, that should accelerate hopefully the development of semiconductor technology.”<\/p>\n

That could mean chips being used in a decade’s time would be using a fraction of the energy they now used, Speidel said.<\/p>\n

“So there could be another sort of efficiency gain where maybe that huge footprint that we’re seeing at the moment could be mitigated.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"University of Auckland computer science lecturer and technology consultant Ulrich Speidel. Photo: RNZ\/Luka Forman A computer scientist says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,145],"class_list":["post-464521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}