# Sam Altman says AI can repay energy sector through gains in production and efficiency

By Riza Dagoc

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/ai/47066
Published: 2026-11-03T00:00:46.000Z
Updated: 2026-11-03T00:00:46.000Z
Section: AI

> Sam Altman said AI could improve energy production through materials, turbine design and operations, helping expand supply even as rising AI use increases power demand.

AI could help expand energy supply and improve efficiency as its growing use increases demand for power. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said advances in materials, turbine design and operations could help the energy industry produce and deliver more energy.

In remarks and a discussion carried by DRM News on November 2, Altman said the AI industry could now begin returning the support it has received from energy producers. He argued that models were starting to generate new knowledge and solve complex problems, opening opportunities for cooperation with the energy sector.

Altman said energy companies could ask sophisticated AI systems to identify ways to increase output more efficiently, whether through new materials, different turbine designs or better operations. He said models had only begun to acquire these capabilities in recent months.

He described cooperation with AdNock and G42 as an opportunity to apply those capabilities to difficult industrial problems. Calling G42 a longstanding partner, Altman said model performance had caught up with plans discussed over several years, allowing the companies to tackle AdNock’s most valuable challenges with advanced AI and substantial computing capacity.

Altman said expectations remained shaped by the limitations of earlier models. Companies should seek out the biggest problems current systems could address, he argued, adding that the results could exceed their expectations.

Improved energy efficiency would also encourage greater AI use, Altman said. He claimed energy consumption per query was falling sharply, with efficiency gains ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of times compared with three or four years earlier. As efficiency improves, however, people want to use AI much more, he said.

To illustrate demand growth, Altman cited tokens, the units of text processed by AI systems. He said OpenAI’s heaviest user six years earlier consumed 100,000 tokens a month, while average monthly use worldwide was now about 100,000 tokens per person and the heaviest user consumed about 500 billion. Benefits in medical advice, drug discovery and education justified enabling wider use, he said.

Altman also praised AI adoption in the UAE, pointing to its commitment across government and the economy. He estimated that about 80% of young people used ChatGPT weekly and argued that societies adopting AI broadly and early would benefit most.

He described AI’s expanding role in invention and scientific discovery as a “new renaissance.” Turning the ideas people develop with AI into physical outcomes would require more energy, he said, adding that the industry’s aim was to help increase energy availability by more than the amount it consumes.