“What's going to save the planet is winning the AI arms race,” Trump Interior Secretary says (www.techradar.com)

US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told a natural-gas industry event in Italy that “winning the AI arms race” is a higher, more urgent priority than preventing further climate change. He argued that AI development requires “lots of electricity now,” criticized the global $5 trillion push into wind, solar and batteries as ineffective and inflationary, and promoted fossil fuels (and broader energy mixes) as the quickest way to power AI data centers. His remarks came amid U.S. plans to stop Russian uranium imports by 2028 and contrast with China’s strategy of investing across coal, nuclear, wind and solar for energy security. For the AI/ML community, the comments underscore a growing policy trade-off: rapid AI scale-up is driving unprecedented electricity demand and is pushing some policymakers toward fossil and nuclear solutions that could lock in higher emissions. Scientists still estimate global warming of roughly 2.7–3°C by 2100, and critics warn that prioritizing immediate power needs over decarbonization risks worsening that trajectory. Technical and operational implications include shifting infrastructure location and cost calculus for large-scale training and inference, heightened geopolitical supply-chain considerations for fuel and chips, and intensifying pressure to develop more energy-efficient models and carbon-aware deployment strategies even as AI is touted as a potential tool for climate mitigation.