Watts and Bots: The Energy Implications of AI Adoption

Abstract

With the rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence, there are expectations for a proportional expansion of economic activity due to increased productivity, and with it energy consumption and its associated environmental consequences like carbon dioxide emissions. Here, we combine data on economic activity, with early estimates of likely adoption of AI across occupations and industries, to estimate the increase in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions at the industry level and in aggregate for the US economy. At the industry level, energy use can increase between 0 and 12 PJ per year, while emissions increase between 47 tCO2 and 272 ktCO2. Aggregating across industries in the US economy, this totals an increase in energy consumption of 28 PJ per year, or around 0.03% of energy use per year in the US. We find this translates to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions of 896 ktCO2 per year, or around 0.02% of the CO2 emissions per year in the US.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, energy, climate change

JEL Classification: O440, Q430, Q540, Q550