The AI boom has caused as much carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere by 2025 as the entire city of New York emitted, it has been claimed.
The global environmental impact of this rapidly spreading technology has been estimated in research published on Wednesday, which also revealed that AI-related water consumption now exceeds the entire global demand for bottled water.
The figures were compiled by Dutch academic Alex de Vries-Gao, founder of Digiconomista company that studies the unintended consequences of digital trends. He claimed it was the first attempt to measure the specific effect of artificial intelligence rather than data centers in general, as the use of chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini exploded in 2025.
Figures show that estimated greenhouse gas emissions from the use of AI now equal more than 8% of global aviation emissions. His study draws on tech companies’ own reporting and he calls for tougher requirements for them to be more transparent about their climate impact.
“The environmental cost of this situation is quite enormous in absolute terms,” he said. “Right now, society is paying these costs, not the technology companies. The question is: Is it fair? If they’re reaping the benefits of this technology, why shouldn’t they pay part of the costs?”
De Vries-Gao found that the carbon footprint of AI systems in 2025 could reach 80 million tonnes, while water used could reach 765 billion litres. He said it was the first time the impact of AI on water had been estimated and showed that AI water consumption alone was more than a third higher than previous estimates of water consumption for all data centers.
The figures are published in the academic journal Patterns. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said Earlier this year, AI-driven data centers consumed as much electricity as energy-hungry aluminum smelters, and data center power consumption is expected to more than double by 2030.
“This is further evidence that the public is footing the environmental bill for some of the richest companies on the planet,” said Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at Foxglove, a British nonprofit that campaigns for fairness in the technology sector. “Worse still, this is likely just the tip of the iceberg. The data center construction frenzy, powered by generative AI, is only just beginning.”
“Just one of these new ‘large-scale’ facilities can generate climate emissions equivalent to several international airports. And in the UK alone there are around 100-200 in the planning system.”
The IEA reported that the largest AI-driven data centers under construction today will each consume as much electricity as 2 million homes, with the United States accounting for the largest share of data center electricity consumption (45%), followed by China (25%) and Europe (15%).
The largest data center planned in the UNITED KINGDOMon the site of a former coal-fired power station in Blyth, Northumberland, is expected to emit more than 180,000 tonnes of CO2 per year when operating at full capacity – equivalent to the amount produced by more than 24,000 homes.
In India, where $30 billion (£22.5 billion) is being invested in data centers, there are growing concerns that the unreliability of the national grid will lead to the construction of huge fleets of diesel generators for backup power, as consultancy KPMG proposed this week. called “a huge… carbon liability”.
Technology business environment disclosures are often insufficient to assess even the full impact of the data center, let alone isolate the use of AI, De Vries-Gao said. He noted that when Google recently reported on the impact of its Gemini AI, it didn’t take into account the water used to produce the electricity to power it.
Google said that by 2024 it had managed to reduce energy emissions from its data centers by 12% through new clean energy sources, but it said This summer, achieving its climate goals was “now more complex and challenging at every level – from local to global” and “one of the major challenges is the slower-than-necessary deployment of carbon-free energy technologies on a large scale”.
Google has been contacted for comment.