In the last few years, AI has taken the world by storm. But what impact is it having on climate change?
Concerning reports show its massive carbon footprint - to take ChatGPT as an example, it generates 260,000kg of CO2 a month. That's the same as 260 transatlantic flights. And while individual interactions seem small, its 164 million monthly users means its environmental impact is huge - behind these emissions we can find increasingly energy-hungry data centre infrastructure.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, in 2022, data centres were the 11th largest electricity consumer in the world, between the nations of Saudi Arabia and France. By 2026, the electricity consumption of data centres would rank it 5th globally, between Japan and Russia. Looking at water, which is used to cool a data centre by absorbing heat from computing equipment, it has been estimated that, for each kilowatt hour of energy a data centre consumes, it would need two litres of water for cooling. In fact, some studies are showing global AI demand could be accountable for 4.2-6.6 million cubic meters of water withdrawal in 2027, equivalent to the total water withdrawal of Denmark.
However, there is a growing number of experts that believe that AI will be part of the solution, by acting faster and being more energy efficient, despite the larger amount of energy it requires to run. Particularly, some think that AI will be able to streamline supply chains, which often makes up the majority of a company's emissions.
Either way, our use of AI requires interrogation, research and thought about the resources used to run it, as with all activities and actions we take daily.
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