Chamber and committees

Sandy Begbie touched on the key hot topic in AI at the moment, certainly in Scotland, which is AI data centres. It is important that we examine that. I will play devil’s advocate on the subject, at the risk of being negative on investment, which I am certainly not, as Sandy will know. Why do we need to build hyperscale AI data centres here? What is the risk if we do not build them? What opportunity would we miss if we did not build data centres in Scotland?

I will pursue a point as a devil’s advocate. If data centres are being built and people will access AI models through the cloud and the internet, why do we need to build the data centres here? Could we use our excess energy for other purposes, especially when we are considering building them in the central belt? Although Scotland has a relatively low population density, the central belt does not.

Michael Rovatsos, I will bring you in and add a couple of questions. Are there any technical reasons why proximity is an issue? From a broader technical point, I have also often wondered about AI density—I am again pursuing a point as a bit of a devil’s advocate. In the history of computing, there has always been a presumption that we will centralise the computing and processing power and that we will access it using long lines with terminals and mainframes, but that has never turned out to be true; it has always ended up being distributed. Is there a risk that, in pursuing data centres, we will concentrate the processing power and then end up with a distributed model again, like we have always done?

I say this for clarity’s sake, as I was playing devil’s advocate. I take the broad view that, if we are not on the front foot with such things, we are probably on the back foot. That is not to say that we do not need to consider this issue very carefully, but we need to consider it very rapidly. The points that have been made have been useful.

I will ask a broader point, and I am interested in getting a response from anyone. You have spoken about the need to consider AI in education. I would be interested to draw out some specifics. I am still hearing from schools about children not being allowed to use AI at all and about AI being associated with plagiarism.

We need to think about the skills that we need to provide to young people. We have an opportunity now to impart the right skills to children and to make them ready for the change. It is like what calculators were to arithmetic. There is a force multiplier here if we get it right. However, what does that look like? Do any of the witnesses have clear views about changes that we could make to the curriculum, to teaching practice or to pedagogy so as to get on the front foot with AI in education?

Thank you so much for that interesting presentation, Professor Helm. I have big questions to ask, so I apologise.

You were very clear about the importance of focusing on climate change, but said that what we are doing will essentially not be sufficient. What does the right course of action look like? What should we be investing in?

On the flipside of that coin, if you look at the countries that invest most in renewables, you see that China tops the league table. I wonder whether we need to consider what the future energy economy will look like as the world is moving away from fossil fuels. Yes, renewables are expensive today, but their costs will come down. There is a risk that, if we do not invest in the future energy economy, we will get stuck with a very 20century model, while China will have already invested in and built the 21century energy economy, and it will all be solar and much cheaper. Renewables are expensive now, but they will get cheaper and we have to see this through.

What should we be doing? Should we be looking at what other countries are doing and what the future electricity and energy economy will look like? Are those sensible questions?

I feel that I need to correct Dr. Gill—the question is not how big the lake is, but how big the loch is. [Laughter.]

I have two questions: one about heat and the other about electricity. First of all, on heat, I really appreciate your putting all this in the context of peak oil being in 1999 and the long-term prospects for gas production, because I think that that is actually important.

However, do we have a plan in that respect? The chart that you showed us indicated that heat in buildings accounts for almost half of our energy requirements. Much of that conversation is about air-source heat pumps; however, when I look at my constituency, I have to say that, if that is going to be the route, it is going to be very expensive for people to heat their homes. I do not see what the alternatives are. We are for ever saying, “Oh, we should develop a plan for heat networks.” There is legislation on the books, but I do not feel that there is any plan in that respect or any clear upgrade options for people. Do you think that we have a good enough plan for to get us away from using gas for heating, if that is the aim of the game?

How much would you expect that to be? By the way, the numbers that I was posing were just from quick google searches, so please correct me if any of them were wrong. Do you think that the prices could fall to French or US levels, or are we going to have more expensive electricity than those countries?

That is really interesting and is something that the committee should look at.

Professor Helm made a point about being realistic about competitors. To be clear, I take the view that we should be looking to transition because the planet is stuffed if we do not. However, we must ensure that we are competitive. Your numbers showed that the cost of generation was £74 per megawatt hour last year, which is £10 below the aggregate CFD cost of about £84 per megawatt hour and means that generation is being subsidised to the tune of £10 per megawatt hour. It is also about 20 per cent higher than the cost of around £60 per megawatt hour in France and is almost double the wholesale cost of around $40 per megawatt hour of electricity in the USA.

Are we building an expensive system and are you saying that those costs will reduce over time? You are saying that there is a lot of up-front cost, but will we see those costs coming down or are we building a system that is generating expensive electricity? How do we square those circles?

I hope that everyone was impressed with how slick that was.

I am pleased to serve on the committee again, as I did in the previous session of the Parliament when I was latterly, albeit briefly, committee convener. I am happy to share any insights from the prior committee’s work, but it is up to members whether they choose to heed that or whether we choose to do our own thing in the new session. I look forward to our work.

I think that the letter sets out that the Government has changed its position; it does not really set out why it has done so. It will be useful to hear the minister set that out this afternoon. If no explanation is forthcoming, it might be useful to get a response in writing.