By Koketso Mamabolo
“For more than 200 years, economic growth was defined by industry capacity. Now for the first time in history, it is measured in computational power and digital capability,” said Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and chairman of state-owned renewable energy firm Masdar, speaking at the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week earlier this month.
While the majority of businesses are still in the experimentation phase, in a global survey by Mckinsey on AI usage 88% of respondents reported that they use AI for at least one business function, up 10% from last year.
General AI use (20% in 2017) has been rising steadily and the same can be said for generative AI, which was at 37% in 2023 and 79% last year.
Unsurprisingly, the bigger the company’s revenue the higher the level of AI scaling.
The technology, media and telecommunications, and healthcare sectors report the highest use of AI agents while software engineering, manufacturing, and IT see the most cost benefits. In terms of revenue, sales, strategy and corporate finance, and product or service development have seen the most benefits.
By 2033, UN Trade and Development predicts that the AI market will reach $4.8-trillion, a staggering increase from the 2023 figure of $189-billion. Research from Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute shows that one in six people now use generative AI tools.
The global north is seeing adoption levels double those of the global south but in the second half of 2025 South Africa had the highest adoption figures on the continent with 21.1%, comparable to developed regions such as the EU and North America.
Interestingly, in a survey of 3 000 South Africans, UCT found that 37% of respondents had never heard of AI, while 36% knew very little about it and it is reasonable to expect those numbers to change very soon.
Powering the future
“Artificial intelligence is rewiring every industry, reshaping every sector and resetting expectations for global growth. And while the world is changing around us, one constant remains and that is energy,” said Dr Al Jaber.
“Every algorithm, every data centre, every breakthrough and advanced technology needs power to drive it. Simply put, there is no artificial intelligence without actual energy.”
Last year, oil giants Chevron and Exxon Mobil showed great interest in discussions about using natural gas and carbon capture to provide AI data centres with low-carbon energy.
Jeff Gustavson, president of Chevron New Energies, said: “It fits many of our capabilities – natural gas, construction, operations, and being able to provide customers with a low-carbon pathway on power through CCUS [carbon capture utilisation and storage], geothermal, and maybe other technologies.”
The backbone of the AI world are data centres which are facilities where data is stored and processed. These facilities use about 60% of the electricity needed for AI functions with consumption varying from centre to centre.
In 2024 it was estimated that data centres accounted for 1.5% of global electricity consumption, growing 12% per year over the last five years.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), “the rise of AI is accelerating the deployment of high performance accelerated servers, leading to greater power density in data centres.”
IEA estimates that the figure will double by 2030, with a growth rate four times faster than that of any other sector.
While current data centre electricity consumption in Africa is low (the US and China have the highest South Africa stands out with a consumption rate that is predicted to be 15 times larger than the continental average in the next five years.
Research suggests that on the global front renewable energy will meet almost half of the additional energy demand from data centres, followed by natural gas and coal, and the portion of nuclear energy set to increase.
Between 2024 and 2030, IEAs data shows a 22% average annual increase for renewable energy usage in data centres.
“This growth is primarily driven by the rising deployment of wind and solar PV in power systems across the globe, with some new capacity financed through PPAs with technology companies.”
The US, the dominant player in the AI space, meets most of its data centre energy demand using fossil fuels, mainly natural gas. Data centres in China,the next big player, are getting 70% of their electricity from coal.
Find out exactly how much electricity ChatGPT uses in the full article
Sources: Mckinsey| UN Trade and Development| Microsoft| UCT| Reuters| Energy and AI report| IEA| The Sling| Grand View Research| Power and Sun| MIT Technology Review| CNBC| WEF| Data Center Map| Africa Business Insider| Presidency ZA
