The UK’s AI data centres could be more than a hundred times more damaging to the climate than previously estimated, the government has announced. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology this week corrected its forecast for greenhouse gas emissions from AI compute for the next decade, which had been based partly on work by the consultancy McKinsey.
Last year the government said annual greenhouse gas emissions from AI compute would be at least 0.025 MtCO₂ — equating to 0.25 MtCO₂ over the decade to 2035 — compared to an estimate this week of at least 34 MtCO₂.
AI data centres are now expected to account for between 0.9 and 3.4 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions in the decade to 2035. Last year the government said they would make up less than 0.05 per cent of the total.