Article on energy usage by AI – courtesy of MIT Review and Camp Tech
This article is an eye-opening assessment of the energy usage of AI (and the impact on our climate) – through data centres and other sources for one. It is not something many of us are conscious of …
The article is long – but definitely worth a read….. Patricia
Here is a small taste of the article:
A report published in December by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is funded by the Department of Energy and has produced 16 Nobel Prizes, attempted to measure what AI’s proliferation might mean for energy demand.
In analyzing both public and proprietary data about data centers as a whole, as well as the specific needs of AI, the researchers came to a clear conclusion. Data centers in the US used somewhere around 200 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, roughly what it takes to power Thailand for a year. AI-specific servers in these data centers are estimated to have used between 53 and 76 terawatt-hours of electricity. On the high end, this is enough to power more than 7.2 million US homes for a year.
If we imagine the bulk of that was used for inference, it means enough electricity was used on AI in the US last year for every person on Earth to have exchanged more than 4,000 messages with chatbots. In reality, of course, average individual users aren’t responsible for all this power demand. Much of it is likely going toward startups and tech giants testing their models, power users exploring every new feature, and energy-heavy tasks like generating videos or avatars.
Data centers in the US used somewhere around 200 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, roughly what it takes to power Thailand for a year.….”