APEC Ministers Agree to Cooperate on Power Supply for AI

Beijing, Sept. 12 (Jiji Press)--Energy ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have vowed in a joint statement to boost energy security cooperation, including by fortifying supply chains, amid soaring crude oil prices and growing artificial intelligence-related power demand.

At their two-day meeting in Beijing that ended on Friday, the APEC energy ministers stopped short of setting a new decarbonization target.

Accounting for half of the world's energy demand, the APEC area, which comprises 21 member economies, including Japan, the United States, China and Russia, has been hit hard by higher crude oil prices, which were triggered by turmoil in the Middle East.

"We encourage practical cooperation to strengthen energy supply chain resilience, including on topics such as voluntary timely nonsensitive information-sharing, risk assessment, strategic reserve management, cybersecurity and physical resilience of critical energy infrastructure," the energy ministers said in their joint statement.

Also incorporating Japan's input, the statement highlighted the importance of energy security cooperation, including collaboration between oil-producing and oil-consuming countries and diversification of supply networks.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]