The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on Tuesday has alerted the public that the use of data-intensive technologies, specifically artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, is growing faster than the current electricity infrastructure can handle.While a data center facility can be built and connected to the grid within two to five years, expanding transmission lines and other grid infrastructure can take more than 10 years to be updated, due to lengthy planning, approval and construction processes.Data center construction and AI consumption are expected to almost double by 2030, equaling about three percent of the global energy demand, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Additionally, worldwide investments in data centers and their infrastructure are estimated to roughly double by 2050, from around $800 billion per year in 2026 to $1.8 trillion per year in 2050. This has begun to raise concerns about the future reliability and resilience of global energy systems.This is not the only concern surrounding AI and data centers. Concerns regarding the usage of AI are multifaceted, ranging from the environmental to the economic to civil rights. Researchers such as Dr. Shaolei Ren have noted that AI negatively impacts the water supply, stating that the training of a model such GPT-3 in Microsoft’s data centers could consume around 700,000 liters of clean freshwater.Large data center facilities can use millions of gallons of drinking water a day to…

Because you read this