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AI & Energy

AI's electricity, water and hardware footprint, with every figure sourced.

AI and Energy looks at the physical cost of AI, meaning the electricity, water, buildings and hardware behind every prompt. Headlines on this topic often mix up very different measurements, so each post here says what a figure actually counts, such as water withdrawn against water consumed, or one prompt against a whole data centre.

Read the full introduction

The electricity used by a single prompt is the best place to begin, because the other posts build on it. The water post follows the same footprint from cooling towers to the power stations and chip factories that supply them. The data centre posts explain what is inside the buildings and why they are being built where they are. Later posts take the questions further, from renewable power and household electricity bills to electronic waste and the Stargate project.

Every post lists its sources and the date it was last reviewed, because figures in this area change quickly and many of them are estimates rather than measurements.

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