AI and Climate Change

“As recently as 2020, data centers and data transmission networks, which underpin both the Internet and high-performance computing, produced just 0.6% of humanity’s climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.”

“But if we build enough data centers fast enough, the emissions from computing could easily take off. And generative AI is driving just this kind of swift buildout. In the U.S., where AI has grown fastest, it has changed the whole trajectory of the electric grid.”

“For the past 20 years, U.S. energy use has been mostly flat. This has made it easier to gradually replace old, climate-polluting energy sources, like coal-fired power plants, with cheaper, cleaner ones—and helped our greenhouse gas emissions slowly decline since the mid-2000s.”

“Now our energy needs are growing again. A U.S. Department of Energy study estimates that our data centers’ energy use, already at a record high, will at least double and may more than triple by 2028.”