AI to double data centre power and water consumption by 2030: UN researchers

[SINGAPORE] Data centres are expected to consume twice as much power and water by 2030 as they expand to meet the surge in demand from artificial intelligence, UN researchers said on Wednesday (Jun 3).

Unless governments heed the rising environmental costs of AI, the rapid roll-out could also strain scarce land resources and create mountains of electronic waste, the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health warned in a report.

Here are a few takeaways from the report:

Last year, data centres consumed 448 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity globally, more than the whole of Saudi Arabia. AI accounted for a fifth of the total.

They also consumed 4.5 trillion litres of water, enough to meet the needs of more than 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, and generated 189 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

Kaveh Madani, the institute’s director and the report’s lead author, said: “The public debate still often treats AI as software, but AI is also physical infrastructure: data centres, electricity generation, cooling systems, transmission networks, chips, minerals, land and water.”

Annual power consumption from data centres is projected to double to 945 TWh by 2030, around the same as the whole of Japan, with AI accounting for 40 per cent of the total.

Water consumption is expected to reach 9.3 trillion litres, while CO2 emissions will rise to 399 million tonnes.

The data centre land footprint is also forecast to increase from 6,900 square km in 2025 to more than 14,500 square km by 2030, the report said.

SEE ALSO

As ‘tokenmaxxing’ and AI costs take off, companies turn to private token factories: Dell

Nvidia has capacity to supply robust AI growth despite constraints: CEO Jensen Huang

Data centre boom props up Australia’s slowing economy

While AI could boost efficiency by optimising power grids and reducing waste, overall electricity and water demand is still likely to rise as countries and corporations race to build new capacity.

“Right now, the competition for growing faster than others overshadows the very basic principles of sustainable growth,” he added.

“AI will not simply ‘run out’ of water or electricity worldwide. But in specific places, poorly planned data centre expansion could collide with existing resource pressures. That is why responsible planning matters now, before infrastructure and dependencies become locked in.” REUTERS