Since midnight today, AI around the world has used:
Right now on the grid
The same electricity can be clean or dirty depending on where and when it's made. The latest figures from two of the biggest data-centre hubs, in grams of CO2 per kWh generated:
London
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Northern Virginia
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Both count CO2 from generating the electricity on that grid (NESO also counts imports). They're the grid's average, not a measurement of any data centre: a data centre may buy cleaner (or dirtier) power, or run at different times. Northern Virginia is calculated by Hum from EIA's hourly fuel mix for the PJM grid and EIA's CO2 per kWh by fuel. Hum checks about every 15 minutes; NESO publishes every half hour, EIA about a day late. How we know
Every second
- Electricity 4.92 MWh (4.07 MWh to 5.84 MWh)
- Water 12,492 litres (489 litres to 32,004 litres)
- CO2 2.33 tonnes (509 kg to 3.27 tonnes)
AI runs at about 17.7 GW, day and night, about 5.81 times the data centres of Northern Virginia, the biggest hub Hum tracks (about 3,046 MW). At this rate AI fills an Olympic pool (2.5 million litres) with the water it uses about every 3.34 minutes.
A model, not a live meter: the world's data-centre electricity in 2025 (IEA) times AI's share (26.5–38%, a United States figure used as a world estimate), spread evenly over the year. Water: on-site cooling plus power-plant water per kWh. CO2: world-average grid (middle). Dotted numbers are calculated. How we know