The energy needs of emerging technologies are growing

AI is becoming more power-hungry than a competitive Dungeon Master who wants to win at all costs. At least according to a recent analysis published by researcher Alex de Vries, who, after crunching some data, estimates that by 2027 the artificial intelligence industry could consume as much energy as a country the size of the Netherlands.

The logic leap looks something like this: while hard data provided by companies in this area is scarce, it’s a fact that generative AI like ChatGPT requires powerful servers and lots of computing power. And, as AI’s usage increases over time, so will the costs associated with cooling and running servers at various data centers.

• Microsoft – which is investing heavily in AI development – revealed in its latest sustainability report that its water consumption jumped 34% between 2021 and 2022.
• In 2021 – prior to the current AI arms race and before most of the world had heard of ChatGPT – artificial intelligence already accounted for 10%–15% of Google’s electricity consumption. Just adding generative AI to Search could increase the app’s energy use more than tenfold, per the analysis.

Let’s not forget about crypto and the blockchain. Both also being great examples of power-hungry emerging technologies. As of August 2022, the total global electricity usage for crypto-assets was equivalent to 0.4%–0.9% of annual global electricity usage – an amount exceeding the total annual electricity usage of many individual countries, including Argentina and Australia.