AI Data Centres Raise Local Temperatures By 2 Degrees Celsius, Impacting 34 Crore People: Study

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the last few years has led to companies setting up massive data centres around the world. Apart from consuming huge amounts of water and electricity, these data centres are also creating 'heat islands', warming the land around them by two degrees Celsius on average, making life hotter for more than 34 crore (340 million) people, according to a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study.

"We estimate that the land surface temperature increases by 2 degrees celsius on average after the start of operations of an AI data centre, inducing local microclimate zones, which we call the data heat island effect," the study highlighted, adding that in extreme cases, the jump can be as high as 9 degrees Celsius.

"Results show that the data heat island effect could have a remarkable influence on communities and regional welfare in the future, hence becoming part of the conversation around environmentally sustainable AI worldwide."

Andrea Marinoni, associate professor with the Earth Observation group at the University of Cambridge, and an author of the study, detailed that they focused on more than 6,000 data centres. The temperature increase was consistent across the globe with the impact not limited to the data centre's immediate surroundings.

The temperature increase by these AI data centres affected areas up to 9.9 km (6.2 miles) away, the research found, affecting more than 340 million people.

"The 'rush for AI-gold' appears to be overriding good practice and systemic thinking," Marinoni told CNN, "and is developing far more rapidly than any broader, more sustainable systems."

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AI Using Water

AI Data centres rely on cooling systems that can consume millions of litres of water, especially in warmer regions. This has raised questions about sustainability, particularly in areas already facing water stress.

According to scientists at the University of California, each 100-word AI prompt is estimated to use roughly one bottle of water (or 519 millilitres). This may not sound like much, but billions of AI users worldwide enter prompts into systems like ChatGPT every minute.

According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), medium-sized data centres can consume up to roughly 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling purposes, equivalent to the annual water usage of approximately 1,000 households. Larger data centres can each "drink" up to 5 million gallons per day, or about 1.8 billion annually, usage equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.