Turkey cannot afford to be left behind in the global race for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Turkish economist and energy expert Fatih Birol, who currently chairs the International Energy Agency (IEA), has said, warning that while the US and China are leading advances in the field, regions of the world such as Europe and India are lagging behind.
‘Turkey needs to make a serious breakthrough in AI without wasting too much time,’ Birol, who is also chairman of the World Economic Forum‘s energy advisory board, told the Turkish daily Hürriyet in an interview yesterday on the sidelines of the Paris AI summit, where experts and political leaders discussed the future and implications of this technology, including both its benefits and potential risks, especially if it falls into the wrong hands.
‘We have a large population, and our economy is also large. Therefore, Turkey cannot afford to be left behind in the race for Artificial Intelligence,’ Birol stressed, calling for government, industry, scientists and civil society to join forces to develop a global strategy on AI, which experts – Birol explained – believe can help to rapidly boost the global economy and “lead humanity into a new era”.
Birol also stressed the importance of energy for AI, due to the enormous power required to run large data processing centres. ‘If there is no power, there is no AI,’ he said. ‘A medium-sized data centre uses as much electricity as a city of 100,000 people,’ said the Turkish expert.
‘Whoever controls AI will leave their mark in the 21st century’
‘The additional electricity demand in the next five years alone is equivalent to the energy currently consumed by the US and Japan. Without data centres there is no Artificial Intelligence. And we need electricity for these data centres,’ stressed Birol, who believes that nuclear energy could help meet this additional demand without interruption, backed up by other types of energy such as geothermal and more. ‘Microsoft, Google and Meta in the US are already paying for electricity for the data centres they will build 10 to 15 years in advance,’ he said.
On the fact that Turkey and other countries and blocs such as the EU are lagging behind in the development of AI, and that this technology is being concentrated in companies in the US or China, Birol warned that ‘it is risky for AI to be only in certain countries and in the hands of certain people’. ‘Whoever controls AI will be the one to leave their mark in the 21st century,’ he concluded.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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