In a study published on Monday by the peer-reviewed journal Patterns, data scientist Alex de Vries-Gao estimated the carbon emissions from electricity used by AI at between 33 million and 80 million metric tons.
That higher figure would put it above last year’s totals for Chile (78m tons), Czechia (78m tons), Romania (71m tons), and New York City (48m tons, including both CO2 and other greenhouse gases).
They acknowledge that they’re forced to estimate because companies are intentionally unclear with the data.
From the study
“The lack of distinction between AI and non-AI workloads in the environmental reports of data center operators means it is possible to assess the environmental impact of AI workloads only by approximating them through data centers’ general performance metrics. Company-wide metrics from the environmental disclosure of data center operators suggest that AI systems may have a carbon footprint equivalent to that of New York City in 2025, while their water footprint could be in the range of the global annual consumption of bottled water. Further disclosures from data center operators are urgently required to improve the accuracy of these estimates and to responsibly manage the growing environmental impact of AI systems.”
Its quite shady. These plants have thousands of meters and transmitters tracking everything, including water usage.
Why is that data not avilable to us?
Also, idgaf if its ai related or data center related. Its all bad in my book. Theyre boiling the oceans to serve me a personalized ad.
Ah, capitalism.