A growing body of research attempts to put a number on energy use and AI—even as the companies behind the most popular models keep their carbon emissions a secret.
You are correct that renewable energy would help but if huge amounts of power are specifically being drawn for AI data centers that is part of the equation. Just like it’s reduce/reuse/recycle in that order for handling items, it should be reduce/renewable for power, and we should have to build the renewable infrastructure before building more data centers.
The oil industry must be so giddy to have found a new scape goat out of nowhere.
Datacenters take a lot of energy because they serve a lot of people. The impact can be lessened with a proper grid centered around renewable.
There are actual things that are fucking up the planet, individuals using AI, gaming or having a Google account aren’t the actual issue.
You are correct that renewable energy would help but if huge amounts of power are specifically being drawn for AI data centers that is part of the equation. Just like it’s reduce/reuse/recycle in that order for handling items, it should be reduce/renewable for power, and we should have to build the renewable infrastructure before building more data centers.
Data center demand has created huge backlog of gas turbine orders. They’re not planning on renewables for the next big expansion