APEC Ministers Agree to Cooperate on Power Supply for AI

Beijing, Sept. 12 (Jiji Press)–Energy ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have vowed in a joint statement to boost energy security cooperation, including by fortifying supply chains, amid soaring crude oil prices and growing artificial intelligence-related power demand. At their two-day meeting in Beijing that ended on Friday, the APEC energy ministers stopped short of setting a new decarbonization target. Accounting for half of the world’s energy demand, the APEC area, which comprises 21 member economies, including Japan, the United States, China and Russia, has been hit hard by higher crude oil prices, which were triggered by turmoil in the Middle East. “We encourage practical cooperation to strengthen energy supply chain resilience, including on topics such as voluntary timely nonsensitive information-sharing, risk assessment, strategic reserve management, cybersecurity and physical resilience of critical energy infrastructure,” the energy ministers said in their joint statement. Also incorporating Japan’s input, the statement highlighted the importance of energy security cooperation, including collaboration between oil-producing and oil-consuming countries and diversification of supply networks. Participants agreed to establish a task force on the mutual advancement of AI and energy, proposed by China, the meeting’s host, to promote energy planning and AI infrastructure development in an integrated manner. Under policy recommendations also adopted at the meeting, the participants proposed the further use of nuclear power and renewable energy, with AI-related power demand in mind. They also called for consideration of the impact on consumers and anticipated increases in electricity bills resulting from the expansion of data centers. Meanwhile, the participants made limited progress on decarbonization. Reflecting the views of fossil fuel advocates, including the United States, the joint statement said that “conventional energy,” such as fossil fuels, continues to “provide firm support for system stability.” The statement reaffirmed existing targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but failed to set new targets for the electricity sector. It did not mention net zero emissions. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]