AI systems may now have a carbon footprint equivalent to that of New York City in 2025, while their water footprint could be in the range of the global annual consumption of bottled water.
After previously estimating the global power demand of AI systems in 2023, 2024 and 2025, my latest research—published open access in the journal Patterns—now provides further insights into the carbon emissions and water consumption related to that power demand. Determining these metrics is a challenge, as “such estimates are complicated by the fact that data center operators do not publicly disclose the required inputs.” The new article highlights the shortcomings in the environmental disclosure of data center operators, in particular with regard to indirect water consumption of data centers and AI-specific metrics. Using the limited information that is available, the article finds that:
- AI systems could be responsible for 32.6–79.7 million tons of CO₂ emissions in 2025, comparable to the annual emissions of a major city.
- The water footprint of AI alone could reach 312.5–764.6 billion liters, potentially rivaling global annual bottled water consumption.
- Current corporate sustainability disclosures never distinguish between AI and non-AI workloads and rarely report indirect water consumption, creating significant uncertainty and likely underestimation of impacts—especially for water.
By highlighting both the scale of AI’s environmental impact and the gaps in available data, this research underscores the urgent need for improved disclosure to responsibly manage the growing footprint of artificial intelligence.
The full article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2025.101430
