6 Facts: What It’s Nice To Know About AI

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich maintains a crowdsourced map of AI data centers in the United States:

Let’s take a closer look…

6 AI Facts

1. When you or I make an AI inquiry, we use less electricity than for other typical activities:

However, longer inquiries use much more power. We climb to 40 Wh with much longer requests.

2. The United States uses a disproportionately large slice of the 1.5 percent of the world’s electricity that goes to AI data centers:

3. Our summary facts hide the areas where AI data centers have the most impact on the power grid.

Seeing that the United States uses considerable electricity for AI, we could have noted where demand is concentrated. Close to a whopping one quarter of Virginia’s electricity demand is for AI data centers. As for the world, at 20 percent of its demand, Ireland is an unusually heavy user.

4. The AI building surge creates jobs. According to economist Ed Yardeni the construction industry has particularly benefited:

5. In a recent Gallup poll most participants opposed data center construction:

6. One reason for opposition to AI data center construction was electricity use:

Our Bottom Line: Tradeoffs

In New York State, Governor Kathy Hochul declared a one-year building halt for AI data centers using more than 50 megawatts of power. While she said that, “development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural ​resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers,” as economists, we know there is always a tradeoff. So yes, while AI uses considerable electricity, the New York moratorium could affect construction jobs and other AI benefits.

My sources and more: Always a handy source of facts, my Our World in Data email inspired today’s post. From there, economist Ed Yardeni’s Quick Takes had additional facts as did Reuters. and Erin Brockovich’s crowdsourced site.