By Maggie Hall
The green cost of AI
Artificial intelligence and the climate crisis are both issues that we often cover in Humanistically Speaking, which is why my ears pricked up at an episode of BBC Radio Four’s The Artificial Human podcast entitled How green is my AI?
Listening to this episode I became increasingly perturbed, not to say shocked, at some of what was said:
The energy used by data centres rivals the aviation industry for carbon footprint and is set to double by 2026, mainly due to AI.
It is estimated that data centres use between three and five percent of the world’s electricity. And it’s growing. (Other estimates of 2% and 7% for current use were also mentioned.)
There is no transparency about how much energy is used by AI platforms, therefore no one really knows the size of the problem. None of the large tech organisations publishes this data.
Open AI (Microsoft) have a $100 billion plan to build a super computer campus to develop more AI models, with a giant data centre due to open in 2028.
Google is building a huge data centre in Singapore.
In the UK there are plans for a new $1 billion data centre in Hertfordshire.
ChatGPT alone uses the power equivalent of 180,000* US households – PER DAY.
There are serious concerns around how power grids will be able to cope with this sudden increase in demand.
*Note: ChatGPT is estimated to use 500,000 kWhs of electricity daily, which is actually the power equivalent of only 18,000 US households.
Listen here
BBC Radio Four’s Artificial Human: How Green is My AI?
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