Unpacking Artificial Intelligence’s Role in the Energy Transition: The Mediating and Moderating Roles of Knowledge Production and Financial Development

This study pioneers an investigation into how artificial intelligence (AI)—shaped by financial development and knowledge production—is transforming the energy transition across BRICS economies and paving the way for a digitally enabled, sustainable future. Using panel data for 2005–2020, the findings confirm that AI is the primary driver of both explicit (EET) and implicit (IET) energy transitions in the BRICS nations, while economic growth, human capital, and financial globalization play comparatively smaller roles. We further find that AI’s effect on the explicit transition is fully mediated by efficiency gains. Financial development weakens—whereas knowledge production strengthens—AI’s green impact. Robustness checks across alternative models support these results, and spillover analyses indicate that cross-border AI advances, economic growth, human capital, and innovation flows shape each BRICS country’s energy-transition path. Based on these findings, the study proposes coordinated policy packages to harness AI for the energy transition while managing distributional and cross-border effects.