Recently, a new study by website hosting service provider KnownHost revealed the staggering carbon footprint of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Data shows that ChatGPT alone attracts more than 164 million users every month and generates up to 260,930 kilograms (about 260 tons) of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the carbon emissions of 260 New York to London flights. This highlights the huge impact that AI technology has on the environment while developing rapidly.
With the popularity of AI, the energy demand of data centers is also rising sharply. Research from Berkeley Lab shows that energy demand in U.S. data centers will more than double between 2017 and 2023, while a report from the International Energy Agency predicts that by next year, technological advances such as data centers, AI and digital currencies will use The amount of energy is likely to double again, with a third of that growth coming from the data centers themselves. This trend has prompted the Biden administration to propose solutions to data center energy consumption, calling for the use of "clean energy" to operate these facilities.
According to reports, ChatGPT consumes more than 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity every day, which is equivalent to the daily electricity consumption of more than 17,000 American households. Data scientists from the Dutch National Bank predict that by 2027, the annual electricity consumption of the entire AI industry will reach 85 to 134 terawatt hours. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also warned that power shortages will become the main factor restricting the development of AI in the next two years.
AI’s staggering energy consumption is considered its “dirty secret.” Leslie Miley, technical advisor to Microsoft's chief technology officer, pointed out that the energy consumption of generative AI even exceeds that of ordinary cloud services. Research from Harvard University and UCLA further confirms that carbon emissions from U.S. data centers have tripled since 2018, now accounting for 2.18% of total U.S. carbon emissions and consuming approximately 4.59% of the nation’s total energy.
