How the AI Boom Could Boost Energy Use and Carbon Emissions
Per the IEA, data centers and transmission networks are each responsible for 1% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions from data have grown only gradually since 2010, thanks to efficiency improvements.
“One of the reasons that a lot of companies haven’t done it today is that there’s not really an easy way of doing it,” said Daniel Castro, the Vice President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “There’s a lot of debate about how they should actually measure [emissions], what parts should be measured — there’s a lot of complicated questions that go into that.”
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According to Castro, the conversation around energy efficiency and costs will grow to be even more relevant as the AI boom progresses and it becomes increasingly more expensive to support the technology. If companies don’t figure out how to be cost-effective, it could prove to be unsustainable — even for a $1.7 trillion company like Google.
“That’s where they have to figure out, ‘Okay, if we want to make this product widely available, we’re either going to reduce the cost substantially … or this is going to be a premium service,’” Castro said.
