How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use? • Hacker News Board

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#21

Post by DenisM » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #14

DenisM wrote: post #3

Select quote: * 5% of electricity in the United States is used to power data centers. For AI-focused ones specifically, it’s probably around 2%.* I think it’s massive.

>I think it’s massive. So what about the other 3%? That's not "massive"? Or it gets a pass because it's not AI? The whole debate over datacenter resource consumption feels like a rorschach test. Either you think the technology is transformative and therefore the resource consumption is justified, or you think it's slop and therefore any resource consumption can't be justified.

> So what about the other 3%? That's not "massive"? Or it gets a pass because it's not AI?

How did you read that in my comment?

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#22

Post by simonw » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

> For longer queries or requests that rely on AI agents or reasoning, the footprint is higher. Epoch AI estimated that a long query (7,500 words of input) could consume about 2.5 Wh, and a very long one (75,000 words) could consume 40 Wh. Those are far higher than the simple text query.

One thing that's missing from almost all of these energy estimates is the impact of "agentic" queries, which were rare a year ago and increasingly common today.

I've asked questions of GPT-5.6 Pro that take 19 minutes to return an answer, as the model runs hundreds of search and site navigation tool calls (and a bit of executed Python code too) trying to get to a credible answer.

I'm confident that 19 minutes involves a lot more than 75,000 words worth of tokens.

With coding agents we can at least get an accurate token count. I'm already at 204,000 tokens of GPT-5.6 Sol today and I haven't started work yet.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#23

Post by runarberg » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

shipman05 wrote: post #10

I'm dismayed by the current political discourse on this topic. Seems like the two camps are 1) let mega corps build data centers with impunity or 2) use NIMBY tactics to oppose them in all cases. I want to see a pro-growth approach that makes the mega corps assume the costs of their negative externalities. I want to see an increased build out of renewable and nuclear energy sources. I want to see environmental protec…

One of the camps has all the money, hold all the power, and does indeed behave with impunity. The other camp has no power, has no way to affect anything, holds no political relevance, and NIMBY tactics is one of very few ways they can even hope to have at least some tiny chance of a minor change in their favor.

I think it does the discourse a disservice to take these two as equal.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#24

Post by fellowmartian » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

shipman05 wrote: post #10

I'm dismayed by the current political discourse on this topic. Seems like the two camps are 1) let mega corps build data centers with impunity or 2) use NIMBY tactics to oppose them in all cases. I want to see a pro-growth approach that makes the mega corps assume the costs of their negative externalities. I want to see an increased build out of renewable and nuclear energy sources. I want to see environmental protec…

There’s the pro-growth Abundance faction, but they’re captured by special interests, so they’re predictably advocating for supply-side YIMBYism and relaxed regulation, without addressing the political economy that led us to the current situation.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#25

Post by DenisM » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #22

> For longer queries or requests that rely on AI agents or reasoning, the footprint is higher. Epoch AI estimated that a long query (7,500 words of input) could consume about 2.5 Wh, and a very long one (75,000 words) could consume 40 Wh. Those are far higher than the simple text query. One thing that's missing from almost all of these energy estimates is the impact of "agentic" queries, which were rare a year ago an…

Where did the tokens go?

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#26

Post by sroussey » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

dundarious wrote: post #19

gruez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it’s massive. So what about the other 3%? That's not "massive"? Or it gets a pass because it's not AI? The whole debate over datacenter resource consumption feels like a rorschach test. Either you think the technology is transformative and therefore the resource consumption is justified, or you think it's slop and therefore any resource consumption can't be justified.

If it was 2% for VOD streaming, and 3% for every other service that is delivered by a networked computer, I would think "wow, streaming is huge". 2% for one thing that most people hardly use at all, versus 3% for everything else on the computer, is still a remarkable statistic. I'm not making any value judgment in order to say that. I also don't think it's particularly conclusive about anything though. It doesn't on…

> 2% for one thing that most people hardly use at all

AI is hardly used at all? Basically every company and consumer in the country is using it, transitively if not directly.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#27

Post by vidarh » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

axus wrote: post #9

Aurornis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising because that's all anyone hears about right now. Many are surprised to learn that data centers use much less water than golf courses or pools. We hear about it so much in the news it sounds like it's the overwhelming largest consumption problem around.

If they use so little water and power, why aren't they being built in the empty office buildings? Seems like commercial real estate was made for ... commercial activity.

Traditionally they have been. Several data centres in London are colocated in office buildings for example. I used to manage servers in one that most tenants wouldn't even have known about.

AI focused data centres also could, but require a higher amount of power and cooling per rack, so it's less practical. The point is not that they don't use more than a typical office, but that they don't use the world-ending amounts people assume they use.

The operators should still be made to pay for the externalities, and regulated to ensure they don't make life miserable for people around them.

But that doesn't mean we need to stop building them.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#28

Post by bakies » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

shipman05 wrote: post #10

I'm dismayed by the current political discourse on this topic. Seems like the two camps are 1) let mega corps build data centers with impunity or 2) use NIMBY tactics to oppose them in all cases. I want to see a pro-growth approach that makes the mega corps assume the costs of their negative externalities. I want to see an increased build out of renewable and nuclear energy sources. I want to see environmental protec…

Seriously, it can't be that hard to build a datacenter and not piss people off. The economics demanded scale so fast that the capitalists don't care enough to thoughtfully plan this stuff out.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#29

Post by bakies » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

jjulius wrote: post #20

shipman05 wrote: post #10

I'm dismayed by the current political discourse on this topic. Seems like the two camps are 1) let mega corps build data centers with impunity or 2) use NIMBY tactics to oppose them in all cases. I want to see a pro-growth approach that makes the mega corps assume the costs of their negative externalities. I want to see an increased build out of renewable and nuclear energy sources. I want to see environmental protec…

>Democracies don't handle nuance well. Especially when modern discourse revolves around 140-character hot takes.

And Instagram reels. Mine is so full of anti-green-energy propaganda I uninstalled the app.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#30

Post by gruez » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

dundarious wrote: post #19

gruez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it’s massive. So what about the other 3%? That's not "massive"? Or it gets a pass because it's not AI? The whole debate over datacenter resource consumption feels like a rorschach test. Either you think the technology is transformative and therefore the resource consumption is justified, or you think it's slop and therefore any resource consumption can't be justified.

If it was 2% for VOD streaming, and 3% for every other service that is delivered by a networked computer, I would think "wow, streaming is huge". 2% for one thing that most people hardly use at all, versus 3% for everything else on the computer, is still a remarkable statistic. I'm not making any value judgment in order to say that. I also don't think it's particularly conclusive about anything though. It doesn't on…

>that most people hardly use at all

Speak for yourself. For "most people", "streaming" is basically TV for them, and the average american watches 2.6 hours per day[1]. It's probably safe to say that at least half of that is "streaming" of some sort, even more if you include other types of "streaming" like music streaming. Moreover nowadays even if they're not plopped in front of a TV, they're watching short form videos.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm