Article By Newser
New UN University report details the energy and water used, plus pollution, due to AI
The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world’s largest countries, according to a United Nations University report, which also predicts their water and energy use and pollution will double in just four years, as use of AI grows. In 2025, global data centers used 448 trillion watt-hours of electricity, more than all but 10 countries, said the report issued Wednesday, per the AP. That electricity use produced about 208 million tons of carbon dioxide, about the same amount as Argentina, and producing that much energy consumed about 1.2 trillion gallons of water, per the report on the environmental consequences of AI’s energy use.
By 2030, data centers will account for nearly 3% of the world’s projected electricity use, with 935 trillion watt-hours. If data centers were a country, the country would be projected to rank sixth-highest in power use in 2030. That would produce nearly 440 million tons of carbon dioxide, the report said. The study focused on energy use and didn’t examine the massive amount of water used to cool data centers. “We’re seeing scales comparable to nations,” says study co-author Kaveh Madani, a water scientist and director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health in Canada. “The demand is enormous.”
Much of the growth of data centers is being driven by AI. About 20% of data centers’ energy is currently due to artificial intelligence, but that should grow to 40% by 2030, the report said. The report is significant due to the credibility of the UN, says Fengqi You, a Cornell University energy engineering professor who directs the college’s AI sustainability issues. “Its value is that a UN institution is putting carbon, water, land, life-cycle impacts, and environmental justice into one frame” for an issue often shrouded in secrecy, says You, who wasn’t part of the report.
People can reduce AI’s massive energy appetite by being less polite and more concise in their queries, Madani says: The report found that cutting word use in requests by 30% can reduce energy used by AI by 25%. That would save about the same amount of electricity as what about 700,000 people in Africa use in a year, the report said. One of the problems in conducting this study is that many companies and places aren’t transparent about what data centers and AI are consuming, or even where and how big they are, say Madani and study co-author Miriam Aczel, a UNU environmental policy researcher. “We cannot manage what companies do not disclose,” says Cornell’s You.
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