Also note the careful wording on requiring data center developers to “bring online sufficient clean energy generation resources to match the full electricity needs of their data centers.”

That is not the same as being fully powered by clean energy, as @agordon.me explains: youtu.be/jFd0QUOUFUg?...

Dr. Shaolei Ren, expert on data center water usage, says AI companies have already exceeded the water usage of the largest beverage companies in the world. youtu.be/Vqvb3G8hJiI?...

As reporter @agordon.me says, “Next time you have a conversation with a chatbot programmed to sound like a movie star, you can think not only about the bottle of water evaporating into the air but all the climate promises that are now in jeopardy.”

www.proofnews.org/ais-unquench...

And there’s another problem for AI data centers: it’s hard to be both water and carbon efficient.

Places that are hot and dry tend to be good for solar power, and places that are cool tend to use more water to generate electricity. So companies may have to pick which climate goal to sacrifice.

You can see the rising water usage of AI in the numbers.
In 2022 Microsoft water consumption rose 34% and Google’s rose 22%.

In 2023 Microsoft’s entire operations, including all data centers, consumed enough water to fill 15.6 billion water bottles.

The bottled water estimates are from a 2023 study from UC-Riverside.

But the real numbers are likely much worse. They studied older, smaller AI models running in big tech owned data centers. Today AI is bigger and often hosted in less efficient 3rd party data centers.

arxiv.org/pdf/2304.03271

As @agordon.me writes: “Tech companies seem to be treating the climate impact of AI like they’re shopping in a store that has no price tags with a credit card in someone else’s name. And they’re not showing us the receipts.”

www.proofnews.org/ais-carbon-f...

Our educated guess of the CO2 costs of AI is definitely an underestimate - it is based on pioneering 2022 research by @sashamtl.bsky.social @sylvainviguier.bsky.social & Anne-Laure Ligozat.

The real cost of newer, bigger AI models is likely much higher.

arxiv.org/pdf/2211.02001

We believe that news should come with an ingredients label – so here is our label for this episode:

www.proofnews.org/ais-power-gr...

A smaller share of Google’s data center electricity is powered by clean energy now than in 2020. The other AI companies don’t disclose clean energy ratios, but they are likely to be similar.

“In a lot of ways, they are going backwards.” – @agordon.me

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFd0...

AI makers are trying to replace their fossil fuel usage with green energy. Amazon, Meta and Google were 3 of the top 4 corporate buyers of clean energy purchase agreements in 2023, and all have invested in nuclear power.

But their electricity use is soaring faster than they can add green energy.

If you haven’t tried Nebula.tv, give it a whirl! It’s a great way to watch your favorite YouTubers, without ads and human-curated without algorithms. We’re honored to be part of their lineup.

go.nebula.tv/proofnews

We would be doubly honored if you joined them in supporting our mission.
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Honored to have collaborated on this investigation with Factchequeado and @alondra.bsky.social