Nvidia's Jensen Huang: AI drives green energy investments as power demand surges

Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, declared during a Taipei event that AI is a powerful catalyst for renewable energy investments. He described AI as a five-layer cake: energy at the bottom, then chips, infrastructure, models, and applications. Greenpeace presented him with a cake bearing the message 'AI needs renewable energy.' Huang emphasized that energy is the first principle of AI infrastructure, setting the ceiling on how much intelligence can be produced. He argued that the enormous demand for electricity driven by AI will naturally steer market forces toward renewable sources, making AI 'the best way to invest in renewable energy.'

Greenpeace welcomed Huang's positive stance but urged concrete action. The group called on Nvidia to mandate 100% renewable energy use across its supply chain, noting that many of Nvidia's key partners—including Hon Hai, TSMC, ASE Technology, and Micron Memory Taiwan—have manufacturing bases in Taiwan. With a market cap exceeding $5 trillion, Nvidia holds significant influence comparable to Google and Apple, which already require green commitments from suppliers. Greenpeace also stressed that Nvidia's planned Taiwan HQ and AI data center in Kaohsiung must comply with local electricity regulations and that the company should invest in local renewables and energy storage to build resilience for Taiwan's AI sector.