AI and Resource Consumption: Examining the Environmental Impact

By IEEE Computer Society Team on

February 18, 2025

Producing hardware and infrastructure: Creating the new servers, storage, and networks required to develop, train, and operate AI already contributes substantially to energy consumption, water use, and carbon emissions.

Model training: Conducting numerous iterations of mathematical operations on vast datasets during AI model training requires considerable computational power and storage.

Inference phase: After deploying AI systems, the process of predicting outcomes using new input data also consumes significant resources.

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Enhancing both the cost-effectiveness and precision of energy infrastructure.

Expediting the process of generating a viable-route short list for pipelines and powerlines from several days to mere seconds, streamlining decision making and project planning.

Facilitating development of entirely new energy systems with low-carbon footprints that also help suppliers to monitor greenhouse gas sinks.

Dig Deeper

To further investigate AI and its impact (good and bad) on energy and water resources, read “The Environmental Impact of Artificial Intelligence.”

In addition to offering detailed statistics on resource usage, including for specific AI models, the article offers more details on AI’s existing and potential contributions to promoting environmental sustainability.

To dig even deeper into AI and its impact on sustainability efforts, join other AI experts, researchers, government officials, and enthusiasts at the international IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IEEE CAI) 5–7 May 2025 in Santa Clara, California.

In addition to showcasing the latest AI research and breakthroughs, IEEE CAI emphasizes applications and key subject areas, from sustainability and human-centered AI to issues and industry-specific applications in healthcare, transportation, and engineering and manufacturing.

Disclaimer: The author is completely responsible for the content of this article. The opinions expressed are their own and do not represent IEEE's position nor that of the Computer Society nor its Leadership.