Centre for Research in Information and Communications Technologies (CITIC)
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Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology at the University of A Coruña and researcher at the Artificial Intelligence R&D Laboratory of the ICT Research Centre (CITIC)
A new United Nations (UN) report assesses the annual environmental costs of artificial intelligence (AI). According to the report, by 2030, if data centers were a country, their electricity consumption would be on par with that of France. As for carbon dioxide emissions, these could reach 400 million tons of CO₂ equivalent, comparable to the total emissions of the United Kingdom. The 9.3 trillion liters of water they use would cover the drinking water needs of the planet’s 8.1 billion people for 1.6 years. The report notes that the generation of high-resolution videos is at the top of AI’s energy consumption. Furthermore, it highlights the growing digital divide and environmental injustice between the nations that control AI systems and those that bear their environmental costs, particularly in the Global South.