How much electricity and water does AI really use?
One chatbot answer can use about as much energy as nine seconds of television, yet data centres used about 1.5% of the world's electricity in 2024.
▶ Start the storyHow much electricity and water does AI really use? It depends on whether you count one question or the whole planet, and on what you decide to count. Per question the numbers look tiny: a 2025 Google study of its own Gemini assistant reported a median text prompt of about 0.24 , roughly the energy of watching nine seconds of television.
Added up, the picture changes. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that data centres used about 415 of electricity in 2024, around 1.5% of global electricity, and projected about 945 terawatt-hours by 2030, with AI as the main driver of that growth. The IEA also said that data centres are a small share of electricity use overall, but their effects can be much stronger locally because demand is concentrated in a few places.
415 TWh
Water works the same way. Data centres use water directly, mainly for cooling, and indirectly, through the water power plants use to generate their electricity. In an IEA report, of the water data centres consumed in 2023 about two thirds was linked to energy generation and about a quarter to cooling. In 2024 a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report suggested US data centres consumed directly about 66 billion litres of water in 2023, without saying how much of that was due to AI.
These are estimates, and they disagree because researchers count different things. Treat every figure here as dated and attributed, not as a fixed fact.
Quiz me
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Recap
Small per question, large in total; always ask who measured it, what they counted and when.
💡 A trick to remember it · A drop per question, a lake in total: check who counted, what they counted and when.
Surprising fact · IEA estimate: data centres used about 415 TWh in 2024, around 1.5% of the world's electricity.
Connects to
- 🔌 How does electricity get from a power plant to your plug?
- 🏘️ Why are towns pushing back against AI data centers?
- 🏢 Why can one data center use as much electricity as 100,000 homes?
- 🎮 Why does AI need so many GPUs, and what is the difference between training and inference?
- 🌡️ How do we know humans are warming the planet?
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (13 claims) cites at least one of these.