AI is the fastest growing technology in human history and also consumes incredible amounts of energy and water to maintain its operations. What does the vast global AI use come to in terms of that environmental energy and other impacts? Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment, explains on an episode of the Royal Geographical Society Climate Change Research Group's podcast.

“Energy is only one part of the metabolism. And so, for instance, let's say water is another in the United States. In 2023, before agentic AI had exploded or had started to explode, data centers consumed, let's say about 66 billion liters of water on site for cooling and nearly 800 billion liters indirectly throught the electricity that runs through them. So it is a hidden figure that is roughly almost 12 times the visible one that is something we should be concerned about,” says Sultana.

“We're seeing other materials that come into play. One thing that people don't often think about is the land and the air that also belongs to this equation because increasingly, gas turbines are being built near data center sites to support the energy supply needs and they're driven by the ever-expanding agentic AI use globally,” she says.