cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20289663
A report from Morgan Stanley suggests the datacenter industry is on track to emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play.
The extra demand from GenAI will reportedly lead to a rise in emissions from 200 million tons this year to 600 million tons by 2030, thanks largely to the construction of more data centers to keep up with the demand for cloud services.
I think you would be shocked if you learned what some other things in our world cost in CO2.
The energy costs of cryptocurrency mining are easy to calculate because the system is extremely transparent. AI is a little muddier, but we know how much big tech is expanding data centers, and we know how many enterprise GPUs Nvidia sells, so we get a decent estimate.
But these things don’t actually do as much damage as compared to other things. Imagine how much energy is used for Gaming PCs and consoles. It’s probably up there with Crypto and AI if you consider all running consoles and PCs, plus all the multiplayer infrastructure. But we don’t have numbers because this is hard to calculate.
And then there’s stuff like personal automobiles, that completely blow these other things out-of-the-water.
Or compare to the CO2 put out by global concrete construction. It’s more than some might believe.