Microsoft is open to use natural gas to feed AI data centers to keep up with demand

Houston – Microsoft It is open to display natural gas with carbon capture technology to feed artificial intelligence data centers, said Energy Vice President of the Technology Company to CNBC.

“That would absolutely not be out of the table,” said Bobby Hollis. But the executive said that Microsoft would consider natural gas with carbon capture only if the project is “commercially viable and competitive costs.”

Oil and gas companies have been developing Carbon capture technology For years, but the industry has fought to launch it on a commercial scale due to the high costs associated with such projects. Technology captures carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sites and stores them deeply underground.

Microsoft has ambitious objectives to address the weather, with the aim of matching all its consumption of electricity free energy by 2030. The technology company has acquired more than 30 gigawatts of renewable energy in search of that goal. But the technological sector has concluded that renewable energies alone are not enough to feed the demanding energy needs of the data centers.

Microsoft appealed to nuclear energy last year, signing an agreement to support the restart of Three Mile Island through an agreement to buy electricity of the plant currently closed. But it is unlikely that the United States builds a significant amount of unclear additional power until the 2030s.

Data center developers see natural gas as a short -term power solution despite their carbon dioxide emissions. The Trump administration focuses on increasing natural gas production. The Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, said on Monday that renewable energy cannot replace the role of gas in electricity production.

“We have always been aware that Fossil will not disappear as fast as we would all expect,” said Hollis. “That said, we knew that natural gas is largely the short -term resolution we are seeing, especially for the deployments of AI.”

Exxon Mobil and Chevron announced last December that they are entering the data center space with plans to develop Natural gas plants with carbon capture technology. Chevron reached an agreement with the gas turbine manufacturer, GE Vernova, in January in construction gas plants for data centers “with flexibility to integrate” carbon capture and storage technology.

Hollis refused to say if Microsoft is having conversations with the big leagues. The executive said that the technology company is having “discussions in all areas with all these technologies.”

President Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum in January that he will use emergency powers to accelerate the construction of electrical plants for data centers. Trump said data centers can use the fuel they want. Chevron and Ge Vernova announced their plan to build gas plants for data centers days after Trump’s comments.

“We are happy to see that there is an approach in accelerating schedules to satisfy what we see as a quite critical need,” said Hollis when asked about Trump’s administration’s plans.

But the natural gas deployment faces its own challenges. The cost of the new natural gas plants has tripled and the line to build plants now extends until 2030, said the CEO of Nextera, John Ketchum. Nextera is the largest renewable energy developer in the United States, but also has gas assets.

“Renewable energies are ready to function now because they have been in operation,” Ketchum said at the conference. “It is cheaper and is available at this time unless you already have a turbine in order or that has already been allowed.”

Ketchum said that nuclear is unlikely to be a power solution until 2035. Nextera is considering restarting the Duane Arnold of Duane nuclear plant in Iowa.