AI could soon surpass Bitcoin mining in energy consumption, according to a new analysis that concludes artificial intelligence could use close to half of all the electricity consumed by data centers globally by the end of 2025.
The estimates come from Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies who has tracked cryptocurrencies’ electricity consumption and environmental impact in previous research and on his website Digiconomist. He published his latest commentary on AI’s growing electricity demand last week in the journal Joule.
AI already accounts for up to a fifth of the electricity that data centers use, according to de Vries-Gao. It’s a tricky number to pin down without big tech companies sharing data specifically on how much energy their AI models consume. De Vries-Gao had to make projections based on the supply chain for specialized computer chips used for AI. He and other researchers trying to understand AI’s energy consumption have found, however, that its appetite is growing despite efficiency gains - and at a fast enough clip to warrant more scrutiny.
“Oh boy, here we go.”
With alternative cryptocurrencies t …
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No it won’t, or it already does. AI is a meaningless term used to sell bullshit, so can we please use better definitions? Machine learning models will? Generative ML? Stuff hosted by a large company? There’s no way they’re counting all the small ML models all around the world, and sometimes (sadly, rarely) “AI” can save energy vs the alternative. How has everyone collectively lost their ability to think when it comes to this shit?
Great, we’re burning the planet for fake internet money and lying machines
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which fabricates AI chips for other companies including Nvidia and AMD, saw its production capacity for packaged chips used for AI more than double between 2023 and 2024.
After calculating how much specialized AI equipment can be produced, de Vries-Gao compared that to information about how much electricity these devices consume.
What?!