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Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse


AI is just one small part of data centers’ soaring energy use.

Late last week, both Bloomberg and The Washington Post published stories focused on the ostensibly disastrous impact artificial intelligence is having on the power grid and on efforts to collectively reduce our use of fossil fuels. To be sure, that is an immense amount of power, representing about 0.5 percent of projected electricity demand for the entire world(and an even greater ratio in the local energy mix for some common data center locations). A 2018 study estimated that PC gaming as a whole accounted for 75 TWh of electricity use per year, to pick just one common human activity that's on the same general energy scale (and that's without console or mobile gamers included).

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