Environmental impact of AI

Statistics report on the environmental impact of artificial intelligence

Environmental impact of AI

The arrival of AI disrupted the status quo in pretty much every industry, and many have hailed the technology as a powerful tool in the fight against a series of global challenges, none the least climate change. However, AI comes with its own set of environmental concerns.

This statistics report presents data on the environmental impacts of AI, including electricity demand, greenhouse gas emissions, and water consumption. It also provides figures on the development of theses KPI's for Google, Microsoft, and Meta, three of the largest tech companies for which numbers are disclosed.

Table of contents

Overview

5
  • Premium Forecast AI market size worldwide from 2020-2030 (in billion U.S. dollars)
  • Premium Statistic Adoption of AI compared to generative AI in enterprises worldwide in 2023
  • Premium Statistic Number of notable machine learning models globally in 2023, by geographic area
  • Basic Statistic Global ChatGPT and Gemini app downloads 2024
  • Premium Statistic Number of companies using ChatGPT within their business 2023, by industry

Energy consumption

7
  • Premium Statistic Global electricity demand from data centers and crypto 2022-2026
  • Premium Statistic AI electricity consumption worldwide 2023-2028
  • Premium Statistic Energy consumption by AI models 2024
  • Premium Statistic Energy consumption per request for AI systems 2023
  • Basic Statistic Google energy consumption 2011-2023
  • Premium Statistic Meta's electricity consumption FY 2019-2023
  • Premium Statistic Microsoft's electricity consumption FY 2020-2023

Water demand

5
  • Basic Statistic Estimated water consumption for training GPT-3 2023
  • Basic Statistic Google water withdrawals 2016-2023
  • Basic Statistic Share of Google's water withdrawals 2023, by scarcity
  • Premium Statistic Meta's global water withdrawals 2019-2023
  • Basic Statistic Microsoft water withdrawals 2020-2023

GHG emissions

4
  • Premium Statistic CO₂ equivalent emissions by AI models 2024
  • Premium Statistic Google's GHG emissions FY 2019-2023
  • Premium Statistic Meta's operational greenhouse gas emissions 2017-2023
  • Premium Statistic Microsoft's total greenhouse gas emissions FY 2020-2023

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