POWER GUZZLERS: ‘Democratising’ the environmental impacts of the AI data beast

Amid the global scramble to build more AI data centres, scholars from the United Nations University are calling for greater public transparency and stricter government oversight to measure their largely invisible consequences on the world around us.

Unlike the conscious action of picking up a gun, aiming at a target and pressing the trigger, the roller-coaster impacts of tapping away on a keyboard or cellphone screen are largely hidden from public view.

Partly, this is because there is very little noise and no visible clouds of smoke pouring from the rooftops of the new “information factories” springing up across the world.

And yet, the seemingly benign or noble activity of accessing and distributing digital information can have profound impacts on some of the world’s most critical social and environmental resources – notably water, electricity and a climate conducive to human health.

Some of these impacts have been highlighted with startling comparative statistics in a new study by researchers at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health in Canada.

Seen from this perspective, the report raises several questions about the social and environmental justice implications of unbridled AI data centre proliferation.

“When billions of people interact with AI each day, even a few milliwatt-hours of energy per query add up to gigawatt-hours of demand.

“These patterns have clear justice implications. The electricity used and the environmental resources impacted to generate verbose chat responses, AI-crafted images, or high-fidelity videos are resources that may be unavailable to communities that still lack reliable power or clean water.”

The authors acknowledge the role of AI to analyse massive datasets in seconds, translate multiple languages, detect diseases from medical scans, forecast climate trends, and power everything from personalised recommendations to self-driving cars.

“By executing complex operations at speeds and scales far beyond human capacity, AI is more than just a technological tool – it is a transformative force. It is reshaping economies, redefining labour and influencing how societies interact with technology and with the planet. As AI’s influence accelerates, so too does the urgency to understand its full impact: not only the promise it offers, but also the profound challenges it raises,” the report cautions

Professor Kaveh Ramdani, lead investigator for the report and winner of the 2026 Stockholm Water Prize for his research on water bankruptcy and other water issues, suggests that: “The future of art