AI’s promise comes with a heavy environmental price
AI’s growth demands significant natural resources, particularly water and electricity, potentially exacerbating issues like water scarcity. The industry’s environmental footprint, especially from data centres, requires better transparency and regulation, as evidenced by the EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive.
Governments worldwide are racing to harness the economic potential of AI, but the technology’s environmental toll is growing, and it is impossible to ignore. In the US, President Trump is calling for a ten-year freeze on AI regulation, while the UK is planning ‘AI growth zones’ filled with data centres. Yet these same centres consume enormous amounts of electricity and water, resources already under strain globally.
From 2027, AI systems are expected to use at least four billion cubic metres of water annually, five times Denmark’s yearly consumption. That raises a pressing dilemma: How to support innovation without deepening an already critical global water crisis, where one in four people lacks access to clean drinking water?
The paradox is stark. AI is driving breakthroughs in medicine, agriculture, and climate science, with systems predicting cancer-fighting protein structures and detecting deforestation from space.
AI could save the UK government tens of billions in the public sector by automating routine tasks. But powering these advances requires vast, always-on data centres, which last year in the US alone consumed enough electricity for seven million homes.
Regulators are beginning to respond. The EU now requires big data centres to disclose energy and water use.
The UK, however, has yet to weave AI infrastructure into its climate and planning strategies, a gap that could worsen grid congestion and even delay housing projects. Public concern is mounting: four of five Britons believe AI needs stricter oversight.
Experts say transparency is key. Mandatory reporting on emissions, water use, and energy consumption could give citizens and policymakers the data they need to act. Incentives for efficiency, renewable energy requirements, and creative solutions like using data centre heat to warm homes are already being tested abroad.
The technology’s potential remains enormous. Studies suggest AI could cut more than five billion tonnes of global emissions by 2035, with energy, transport, and food applications. But unless sustainability becomes central to the UK’s AI strategy, the race to innovate risks becoming a sprint into environmental crisis.
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