We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

Part Three: Fuel and emissions

Now that we have an estimate of the total energy required to run an AI model to produce text, images, and videos, we can work out what that means in terms of emissions that cause climate change.

First, a data center humming away isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If all data centers were hooked up to solar panels and ran only when the sun was shining, the world would be talking a lot less about AI’s energy consumption. That’s not the case. Most electrical grids…