AI devours electricity.

Every AI query, chatbot response, and recommendation burns through far more electricity than traditional computing. At Juwai IQI, we see it firsthand. Our recently launched IQPilot, an in-house platform that automates CRM and agent productivity, offers giant benefits but comes at a steep energy cost.

The same challenge exists across the real estate and proptech industries and is even bigger in other industries. Asian tech companies that can solve AI efficiency will unlock a multi-billion-dollar opportunity.

AI in real estate

You might have seen a 3d virtual tour created by Matterport, an American proptech company. Matterport is already widely used in Asia, including on all our Juwai.com portals, because of its ability to create these tours. And of course, the company relies on AI to stitch images together seamlessly.

Now, proptech giant CoStar has acquired Matterport and is taking its AI-powered 3d tours to the next level. Buyers will soon be able to interact with an AI-powered avatar of their agent.

While you’re scanning the 3D image of the living room, the avatar will answer your questions and provide real-time insights on comparable sales, local property statistics, and market trends. It will do all this while speaking to you in the agent’s voice.

As CoStar Group Founder and CEO Andy Florance said at a recent event, “You [will] have this all-knowing virtual agent who remembers every transaction, every home, and every conversation. Buyers will consume more information but in a focused way, eliminating information overload.”

Also Read: K-Beauty market unmasked: Capital dips, global gains, and Southeast Asia’s role

The AI energy crisis

This new capability will add considerably to CoStar’s costs.

AI data centres consume 10 to 20 times more power than traditional web hosting or e-commerce data centres due to the demands of real-time inference, retrieval, and generative AI tasks.

Think of a standard website’s data centre as a fuel-efficient car that cruises at low speeds. An AI data centre, in contrast, is a high-performance race car—constantly revving at full throttle, consuming far more power to sustain its operations.

AI energy consumption, providing fuel to these “race cars,” is a mounting crisis for the companies that have to pay for it. Can you see the opportunity?

The business opportunity in AI efficiency

Power is now a boardroom issue.

CoStar, for example, holds special board meetings to approve its expanding cloud budget, largely due to rising power costs. When AI tools scale, what you spend on energy scales even more quickly.

Data centres consumed an estimated 460 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2022. The International Energy Agency projects this figure will more than double to 1,000 TWh by 2026.

At an average electricity price of US$75 per MWh, that means AI operations alone could generate a staggering US$75 billion in annual electricity costs by next year. These soaring expenses make improving energy efficiency in data centres one of the most valuable opportunities in tech today.

Revenue potential for a market leader

Improving AI energy efficiency by just 10 per cent could reduce electricity costs by US$7.5 billion annually. Companies that develop AI energy optimisation solutions would capture a portion of these savings.

Also Read: How can Malaysia leverage AI for growth and not see it as a threat?

A dominant player capturing 30 per cent market share could generate US$2.3 billion in annual revenue from AI efficiency solutions at next year’s projected power consumption levels. If you also provide a broad suite of AI infrastructure optimisations, your annual revenues could be two or three times higher.

The opportunity is even better than that because AI adoption is accelerating. As a result, efficiency-related solutions could see their market grow at a 15 per cent to 20 per cent compound annual growth rate through 2035. That will make the opportunity much bigger over the next decade.

This is just a rough estimate, but it makes one thing clear: AI’s energy problem is a multi-billion-dollar business opportunity.

Asia’s role in AI efficiency innovation

I’m sharing this insight here on e27.co because Asian tech companies, more than those in any other part of the world, are uniquely positioned to lead the charge in AI efficiency. Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand already have thriving data centre industries. They also have experienced talent and networks of supporting suppliers. That makes them the perfect hubs for innovation.

Even a one to two per cent reduction in data centre costs would create billion-dollar opportunities. Asian business leaders and entrepreneurs have an opportunity to take the lead in a multi-billion dollar industry and help define the future of AI operations worldwide. I hope you will seize it.

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