How much energy will AI really consume? The good, the bad and the unknown

The aroma of hay and manure hangs over Culpeper County, Virginia, where there’s a cow for every three humans. “We’ve got big farms, most still family-owned, and a lot of forests,” says Sarah Parmelee, one of the county’s 55,000 residents. “It’s very charming small-town USA,” she adds.

But this pastoral idyll is in the middle of a twenty-first-century shift. Over the past few years, the county has approved the construction of seven large data-centre projects, which will…