In this latest OIES podcast from the Electricity Programme, Dimitra Apostolopoulou talks to Senior Research Fellow David Robinson and Independent Researcher Plutarco Naranjo about the Oxford Energy Forum (OEF) issue titled “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Its Implications for Electricity Systems”. In this podcast, we provide an overview the OEF and discuss David’s and Plutarco’s paper titled: “The AI arms race and electricity needs”. The conversation begins with a summary of what AI is and how Large Language Models (LLMs) contribute to an increase in data centre energy needs with their training and inference phases. Building on this, David discusses how renewable energy and other sources, such as nuclear, can mitigate the direct impacts of AI and power the surge in data centre demand. The discussion then broadens to examine AI’s indirect influence on climate change, followed by insights into how AI could improve the operation of decarbonised and decentralised power systems. Plutarco also addresses the cybersecurity risks associated with these increasingly complex systems. Finally, the conversation turns to the role of policy in guiding the sustainable development of AI to support the broader energy transition.