MOSCOW, February 19. /TASS/. Joint US-Russian projects in data center construction and scientific and technological developments involving rare earth metals (REMs) appear promising in terms of rising demand for data center capacity and are strategically important for the competition between the two countries’ economies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), Head of the International Best Practices Analysis Department at the Gaidar Institute Antonina Levashenko told TASS.
"As per Goldman Sachs, demand for new data center launches will grow by 17% annually until at least 2028 and will soar by 130% by 2030 compared to the level of 2023. This is strategically important for economic competition in the AI field," she said.
Meanwhile, in the US alone, the cost of building such infrastructure has increased threefold over the past three years. "The demand for electricity is growing at a tremendous rate, which is why many international technology and energy companies are already considering options for using nuclear energy, for example, small modular reactors, as a resource for operating data centers," Levashenko explained.
In this regard, according to the expert, joint projects between Russian and American companies working in the area of nuclear energy, microreactors, and solutions for the use of nuclear fusion in data centers could potentially be carried out.
Another essential resource is various critical materials. "According to the IEA’s (International Energy Agency - TASS) projections, demand for them, including rare earth metals, could climb 20-40 times by 2040. This resource is key to technological competition, so joint projects with other countries’ economies seem vital," she noted.
"This is also linked to the risk that Russia may continue to face a number of shortages in certain metals in the future: development of relevant deposits is limited, and the need for extraction technologies remains high," Levashenko said.
Cooperation prospects
The expert recalled that the United States, like Russia, has promising deposits of rare earth metals: the countries could cooperate in joint research, as well as in the area of technology exchange, from assessing deposits for the presence of rare earth metals to their enrichment and extraction. "Joint Arctic projects may also be considered as a possible direction, given the geographical accessibility of the Arctic zone for both countries, which could theoretically facilitate the implementation of the discussed project to build a tunnel under the Bering Strait between Russia and the United States," she said.