Behind the seemingly safe demand that artificial intelligence generate you a funny photo or make one of the viral trends is a consumption that takes up 1,5 percent of global electricity consumption
You ask? artificial intelligence to come up with a name for your Wi-Fi network or you ask her to generate a picture of a cat in a space suit for you, and she spends tons to do it electricity. Artificial intelligence has become an everyday tool, very often used even for the most stupid things.
However, behind this ease is an infrastructure that consumes a considerable amount of electricity. Servers work non-stop, data centers are cooled and powered by electricity that in many countries still comes from coal.
It’s not a disaster, but it’s a good reminder that even digital things aren’t completely “free” and impactless.
Behind each of the popular AI tools, Gemini or ChatGPT, there is an infrastructure that runs them 24 hours a day. According to the Columbia News climate portal, AI data centers as a whole consume about 1,5 percent of global electricity consumption today. While that number could go up to two percent by 2030.
Where does all that energy go?
AI does not exist as a single program, but as a network of huge computers located in data centers around the world. Those computers have to process huge amounts of data in a very short time.
In addition to the computers themselves, energy is also spent on the constant maintenance of the system. The servers work 24 hours a day, without a break, because the AI must be available at all times for our banal questions.
Where there are big servers, there is cooling. To prevent damage and performance degradation, massive cooling systems are required, which further increases electricity consumption.
Tech Target notes that one AI query uses ten times more energy than a regular Google search. Electricity consumption can be tens of gigawatt hours (GWh), which is enough to power a city for several days.
A Columbia News climate article states that AI data centers account for between 2,5 percent and 3,7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the airline industry. This means that the total pollution originating from data centers is greater than that generated by airplanes worldwide.
Huge coal consumption
According to data from 2023, about 35 percent of the world’s electricity is still produced from coal. According to statistics from the same year, as much as 69 percent of South Africa’s primary energy consumption comes from coal, while China and India are at 55.
In 2024, Serbia produced 62,9 percent of its electricity from coal, Klima 101 writes.
AI servers and data centers consume electricity from the grid, although they do not directly burn fossil fuels, however if the country in the grid uses mainly coal or gas, the AI indirectly consumes said resources.
This means that every query or request to the AI model indirectly consumes part of the coal that is burned in thermal power plants. Serbia, with a network that is still 60-70 percent coal, is an example of a country where the nebulous demands of AI have a concrete climate consequence.
The problem is not the technology, but the way it is used
AI is increasingly the first stop, not an aid. Rather than being used for complex tasks or analysis, it is activated for ideas that would have previously occurred with little thought or a short search.
Artificial intelligence ceases to be a tool that is used as needed and becomes a constant companion in everyday, often banal decisions, precisely this habit is the key problem.
The massive use of AI for all kinds of nonsense is also facilitated by the complete absence of a sense of consumption. We don’t see chimneys, we don’t hear generators, we don’t get a bill after every month. Everything happens away from the user’s eyes.
It is this distance that creates the illusion that use has no price. When consumption is not tangible, it is quite natural that the sense of measure also disappears, which can very quickly become a visible problem.
While AI draws cats in space, generates mimes or writes messages that no one will send, somewhere in China, India, South Africa and Kolubara, Serbia, coal is being melted to power the servers. Digital seems light, but behind every click there is a large amount of electricity.
Source: Vreme
