AI Could Devour 40% of America’s Power by 2030—See Where and Why in This Report

By Hakeem Anwar, Above Phone

The following introduction is excerpted from Hakeem’s full report “AI Data Center Ecology”. Read the complete report at the link below.

“The waves of technological progress have been relentless in the past decade. We routinely use search engines, mobile phones, e-commerce, content streaming, and smart devices — products of the digital age.

Now most of these products and ecosystems are being embedded with AI, with or without our consent, supposedly to make our lives easier.

These systems aren’t free or cheap. We are all paying the unspoken cost as AI data centers guzzle our natural resources.

Our focus in this report will be AI data centers, the next generation of data centers that power modern AI systems. They are facilities that span millions of square feet and house tens of thousands of AI servers, cost billions of dollars, and are becoming so vast that they now use as much power and water as an entire metropolitan city or even more than an entire state.

It’s only after the waves of new technology crash and recede that we notice the damage left in their wake, the deep marks of erosion on society and the psyche of the individual.

Given that AI is developing at such an incredibly rapid pace, we cannot ignore its downsides. If left unchecked, its very real dangers will have catastrophic consequences for our local communities and earth as a whole.

Indeed, we risk a future where:

• Water and utility bills double, triple, or even quadruple

• Wells on private property run dry from groundwater depletion

• Rolling brownouts and blackouts and power grid instability are the norm

• Entire ecosystems suffer from drought

In this comprehensive report, “AI Data Center Ecology,” we share with you an educational foundation to discuss hyperscale data centers; from knowing how to calculate their power, to their legal lifecycle, to how they may impact groundwater systems.

Additionally, this report accompanies our ongoing effort to collect information on thousands of data centers on AI Data Center Map (https://aidatacentermap.org).

On this map you can zoom into your town, and see the impact of nearby data centers on power and water demand. You can also overlay data centers across important landmarks like aquifers and powerlines.

Our intention is to inform three kinds of readers:

• Individuals who want to understand how AI data centers operate

• Anyone who works with AI systems and wants to gain new insights on how to do so with care

• Citizens who want to organize locally and who seek an informed starting point

We appreciate your initiative, and we trust you will learn something new.”

---