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Last month, the corporate behemoth that is Amazon celebrated its 20th birthday in Ireland. It should have been a joyous moment. After all Amazon, like other tech giants, has invested heavily in the country over the past two decades, partly due to its low tax regime, supporting heady growth.
上個月，作爲企業巨擘的亞馬遜(Amazon)在愛爾蘭慶祝了其20歲生日。這本應該是一個喜慶的時刻。畢竟，亞馬遜和其他科技巨擘一樣，在過去二十年裏在該國大舉投資，部分原因是由於其低稅收制度，支援了快速成長。
But in reality these birthday celebrations had a sour tinge. One reason is that European courts ruled last month that €13bn of tax breaks given to Apple were unlawful. On a recent visit, I was told that local business leaders fear this could undermine future investment.
但實際上，這些生日慶祝活動帶有一絲酸澀。一個原因是歐洲法院上個月裁定給予蘋果(Apple)的130億歐元稅收優惠是非法的。在最近的一次訪問中，我被告知當地的商業領袖擔心這可能會削弱未來的投資。
Another, more immediate, spoiler is energy. Amazon Web Services is currently rolling out €30bn of investments in Europe amid a boom in artificial intelligence, according to Neil Morris, its Irish head. But none of that bonanza is going to Ireland, because Amazon officials worry about future energy constraints. Indeed, there are reports that the company has already been rerouting some cloud activity because of this.
另一個更爲緊迫的問題是能源。根據亞馬遜網路服務(Amazon Web Services， AWS)愛爾蘭負責人尼爾•莫里斯(Neil Morris)的說法，亞馬遜網路服務正在歐洲投資300億歐元，以應對人工智慧的繁榮。但是，由於亞馬遜官員擔心未來的能源限制，這些投資並沒有流向愛爾蘭。事實上，有報導稱，由於這個原因，該公司已經開始重新調整一些雲活動的路線。
And while the Irish government has pledged to expand the grid, mostly via wind farms, this is not happening fast enough to meet demand. The water infrastructure is creaking too. Yes, you read that right: an (in)famously wet and windy country is struggling to sustain tech with water and wind power.
儘管愛爾蘭政府承諾透過風力發電場擴大電網，但這並不足以滿足需求的成長速度。水務基礎設施也在吱吱作響。是的，你沒看錯：一個以潮溼和多風而聞名的國家難以用水力和風力維持科技發展。
There are at least four sobering lessons here. First, this saga shows that our popular discourse around tech innovation is, at best, limited and, at worst, delusional. More specifically, in modern culture we tend to talk about the internet and AI as if it they were a purely disembodied thing (like a “cloud”).
這裏至少有四個發人深省的教訓。首先，這個傳奇故事表明，我們圍繞科技創新的流行言論，往好裏說是有限的，往壞裏說是妄想的。更具體地說，在現代文化中，我們傾向於將網路和人工智慧視爲一種純粹無形的東西（如「雲」）。
As a consequence, politicians and voters often overlook the unglamorous physical infrastructure that makes this “thing” work, such as data centres, power lines and undersea cables. But this oft-ignored hardware is essential to the operation of our modern digital economy, and we urgently need to pay it more respect and attention.
因此，政治家和選民經常忽視使其運作的不起眼的物理基礎設施，如數據中心、電力線路和海底電纜。但這些經常被忽視的硬體對於我們現代數字經濟的運作至關重要，我們迫切需要給予更多的尊重和關注。
Second, we need to realise this infrastructure is also increasingly under strain. In recent years the energy consumption of data centres has been fairly stable, because rising levels of internet usage were offset by rising energy efficiency. However, this is now changing fast: AI queries use around 10 times more energy than existing search engines. Thus the electricity consumption of data centres will at least double by 2026, according to the International Energy Agency — and in the US they are expected to consume nine per cent of all electricity by 2030. In Ireland the usage has already exploded to over a fifth of the grid — more than households.
其次，我們需要意識到這些基礎設施也越來越緊張。近年來，數據中心的能源消耗一直相當穩定，因爲網路使用水準的提高被能源效率的提高所抵消。然而，這種情況正在迅速改變：人工智慧查詢的能耗大約是現有搜索引擎的10倍。因此，根據國際能源機構(International Energy Agency)的數據，到2026年，數據中心的用電量將至少翻一番，到2030年，美國的數據中心預計將消耗所有電力的9%。在愛爾蘭，數據中心的用電量已經激增到電網的五分之一以上，超過了家庭用電量。
Third, the scramble by companies and governments to work out how — or if — they can find this additional electricity has produced one unexpected blessing: tech has become a key driver of the energy transition.
第三，企業和政府爭相研究如何——或者是否——能夠找到這些額外的電力，這帶來了一個意想不到的好處：科技已成爲能源轉型的關鍵驅動力。
Yes, surging electricity usage is raising emissions. But companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple are investing heavily in hydro, wind and solar power and battery innovation. Microsoft even recently announced a deal with the Constellation utility group to invest $1.6bn to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear power station in Pennsylvania to meet AI electricity demand. Constellation’s market capitalisation has since jumped above $80bn because investors expect more such deals.
是的，不斷成長的用電量正在增加排放量。但是像谷歌(Google)、微軟(Microsoft)和蘋果這樣的公司正在大力投資於水力、風力和太陽能發電以及電池創新。微軟甚至最近宣佈與Constellation公用事業集團達成協議，投資16億美元重新啓動賓夕法尼亞的三里島(Three Mile Island)核電站，以滿足人工智慧的用電需求。由於投資者預期會有更多類似的交易，Constellation的市值已經超過800億美元。
Meanwhile OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates are extolling the joys of small modular reactors. They and others in the tech sector hope that such moves will eventually reduce the energy squeeze, particularly if future versions of AI use less energy. If so, current fears about electricity supply might turn out to be misguided — just as predictions of a global famine were upended by the 1960s’ green revolution. Tech itself can solve tech woes — or so they hope.
與此同時，OpenAI的薩姆•奧爾特曼(Sam Altman)和微軟聯合創辦人比爾•蓋茲(Bill Gates)正在讚揚小型模塊化反應堆的優點。他們和科技行業的其他人希望這些舉措最終能夠緩解能源緊缺問題，特別是如果未來版本的人工智慧能夠使用更少的能源。如果是這樣的話，目前對電力供應的擔憂可能會被證明是多慮的，就像上世紀60年代的綠色革命顛覆了全球饑荒的預測一樣。科技本身可以解決科技難題——至少他們是這樣希望的。
However, the fourth lesson is that such an innovative energy solution couldn’t work without joined-up government policy. Sadly, that is in short supply. After all, you need planning permission to build data centres, which often means government intervention. Just look at how Angela Rayner, the UK deputy prime minister, is wading into a local fight in Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire, where locals want to block new digital investment.
然而，第四個教訓是，這樣一種創新的能源解決方案在沒有協調一致的政府政策的情況下是行不通的。可悲的是，這種政策供給不足。畢竟，建設數據中心需要規劃許可，這往往意味著政府幹預。看看英國副首相安吉拉•雷納(Angela Rayner)如何介入赫特福德郡阿伯茨蘭利的一場地方爭鬥，當地居民希望阻止新的數字投資。
You also need government involvement to create connected electricity grids. One huge impediment to the rollout of renewable energy in the US, for example, is that it is scandalously hard to get the permits needed to build transmission lines to connect renewable energy resources in the American heartlands to power-hungry places such as California.
建立互聯電網也需要政府的參與。例如，在美國推廣可再生能源的一個巨大障礙是，很難獲得建設輸電線路所需的許可證，而這些線路可將美國中部的可再生能源資源與加利福尼亞等電力需求旺盛的地方連接起來。
And if the energy squeeze intensifies, we will also need government to adjudicate the future distribution of scarce electricity resources and to tackle questions such as whether households ought to get priority over business if the grid crumbles, and whether the state or Big Tech should fund innovation.
如果能源緊縮加劇，我們還需要政府來裁決未來稀缺電力資源的分配，並解決一些問題，例如在電網崩潰時，家庭是否應優先於企業獲得電力，以及國家或大型科技公司(Big Tech)是否應資助創新。
Libertarians — and many techies — might argue that market forces (ie prices) should determine the answers. But that vision is politically toxic, as Irish leaders know only too well. So brace yourself for energy battles across the industrialised world. It is not just AI’s existential future risks that we should worry about now.
自由主義者和許多技術人員可能會認爲，市場力量（即價格）應該決定答案。但正如愛爾蘭領導人所深知的那樣，這種願景在政治上是有害的。因此，請做好準備，迎接工業化世界的能源之爭。我們現在應該擔心的不僅僅是人工智慧未來的生存風險。