The global boom in artificial intelligence (AI) is prompting some countries to delay their energy transition plans for fear of missing out on the economic potential of a rapidly evolving trillion-dollar industry, experts warned during Dubai AI Week 2025.
AI capabilities require data centers, and data centers consume large amounts of electricity. For instance, U.S. data centers consumed more than 4 percent of the country’s total electricity in 2023, and by 2030 that fraction could rise to 9 percent, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. A single large data center can consume as much electricity as 50,000 homes.
This sudden need for so many data centers presents a massive challenge to the technology and energy industries, government policy makers, and everyday consumers.
Regional energy trading, an opportunity for the UAE
In a session titled ‘AI’s Energy Future: Strategies for Sustainability’, Zaid Al Ansari, executive director at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), told the Dubai AI Week 2025 audience about the soaring energy demands of generative AI tools. “When you run a simple Google search through a model like ChatGPT, it consumes around ten times more energy than a traditional search,” he said.
“Some countries are extending the lifespan of fossil fuel plants just to meet AI-related energy needs, while others are holding back on their renewable transition goals to remain competitive in the AI race,” he added. Al Ansari also stressed the urgency of integrating data centers with renewable energy sources.
For his part, Dr. Mounir Boukadidi, regional director, Oracle Energy & Water MEA, pointed to the UAE’s strategic advantage. The nation generates approximately 166 terawatt-hours (TWh), while consuming around 158 TWh. Dubai, in particular, aims to become a regional hub for AI-powered data centers running on 100 percent renewable energy by 2033. This opens a major opportunity for regional energy trading, particularly for powering AI infrastructure.
Mansour Belhadj, general manager at Microsoft, said that by 2026, data centers are projected to consume between 600 and 690 terawatt-hours of power. Around 60 percent of this will be driven by the execution of AI, and 40 percent by training models.
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AI avatars in focus
Dubai AI Week 2025 also featured a session titled ‘Future Forward: Unpacking the Trends Shaping AI’, where Joe Youssef Malek, VP for executive programs – Gulf, India & emerging markets at Gartner, explored the future of AI avatars. “We’re entering a world where individuals may have both a professional AI image and a social AI image,” he said. “But this comes with serious implications for personal identity and brand integrity.”
Commenting on emerging digital personas, Dr. Patrick Noack, executive director of future foresight at Dubai Future Foundation, warned that licensing a digital persona can be dangerous. “You don’t know how that persona might behave in future contexts. It raises the philosophical and ethical question: Who owns ‘you’? Is it the human self or the outsourced AI version—and what happens if your employer owns that persona?” he stated.
In this context, experts at Dubai AI Week 2025 also debated whether AI would replace or reshape the workforce. Mostafa Sallam, HR leader at Microsoft, said: “It’s not about replacement, it’s about redeployment. Organizational culture will define how we adapt.”
Meanwhile, Shereen Chalak Maalouf, CFO of Microsoft UAE, added that before becoming AI-ready, companies must put in the groundwork, starting with unified, clean datasets.
