The huge environmental impact of artificial intelligence. Experts estimate that the demand for AI will increase groundwater or surface water withdrawal to between 4.2 and 6.6billion cubic meters by 2027.
This is roughly half the amount consumed by the United Kingdom each year. Data centers led to an increase in water consumption of 34% for Microsoft, 22% for Google and 3% for Meta. Overall, according to the International Energy Agency, datacentres, cryptocurrencies and AI accounted for almost twopercent of global electricity demand in 2022.