2025 World Climate Industry Expo explores how AI and energy can benefit each other

This Energy Super Week is not just about making the world greener; it's also about ensuring energy becomes more sustainable.

And with artificial intelligence, there could be infinite possibilities for achieving this.

Park Jun-han reports Busan.

With AI on the rise, can the world keep up with the soaring demand for energy?

The 2025 World Climate Industry Expo in Busan is tackling that very question — showcasing how far we've come, and how much work still lies ahead.

"Today, in the world, there is a big race among the major economic powers in terms of being a leader for AI. AI can help us in order to maximize the utilization rate of the grids through optimization. There is no AI without energy, but AI can also help the energy."

During the interview, Regional President of RWE's Asia-Pacific Division Jens Orfelt shared his vision about the growing demand for energy for AI, and ways to sustainably acquire energy.

"It (AI) is very energy intensive, and therefore if we use conventional energy resources to power AI, there's a significant risk that AI becomes part of the problem from an energy transition point of view. It's very important that we also advance the technologies that will ensure that it's based on sustainable energy consumption."

The company also mentioned that creating energy can help solve the Korean government's and companies' high dependency on energy imports.

"A major advantage is also domesticating your energy production, making yourself less vulnerable to imports and thereby increasing your energy security, which is a very important point in the current geopolitical environment as well."

And some exhibitions are doing just that as they showcase their newest technology to produce cleaner energy.

As you can see here, turbines like this use only natural gas to generate electricity.

The company said it plans to develop hydrogen-powered turbines by 2028, which have zero carbon emissions.

It's not only the energy producers that are concerned with the global climate crisis.

Tech giants like NVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft were present to demonstrate their vision of addressing energy security concerns and adopting AI to combat climate challenges.

"So our goal is to deliver more and more performance for each block that our customers use. AI is here, it's inevitable, and it requires energy. The way we tackle those is, number one, to make sure that we have access to energy for the AI so that we can utilize AI for the public good as soon as possible."

The application of AI and its technology is reshaping not only how we live and work, but also how we power our world.

It's the ultimate chicken-and-egg question: AI needs energy, and energy needs AI, to be sustainable.

Park Jun-han, Arirang News, Busan.