The global artificial intelligence industry is rapidly approaching a threshold where its energy consumption could exceed the needs of cryptocurrency mining and even individual countries. By the end of 2025, AI could consume more electricity than the United Kingdom.
The global artificial intelligence industry is rapidly approaching a threshold where its energy consumption could exceed the needs of cryptocurrency mining and even individual countries. By the end of 2025, AI could consume more electricity than the United Kingdom.
As TechSpot reports, research by Alex de Vries-Gao, PhD, of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shows that the energy consumption of modern AI systems is growing rapidly. As early as next year, AI could consume up to 23 gigawatts of power — comparable to the average national electricity consumption of the United Kingdom. For comparison, the computing resources produced in 2023–2024 alone could require between 5.3 and 9.4 GW — more than the entire consumption of Ireland.
Key to this leap is the mass production of AI accelerators such as the Nvidia H100 (consumption — up to 700 W per module) and the active implementation of TSMC’s CoWoS technology, which allows combining computing chips and memory in a single package. While the energy efficiency of data centers is improving, these efforts are being overshadowed by the explosive growth in demand and power of new models.
Most hyperscalers do not publish data on the exact energy consumption of AI systems, making it difficult to assess the carbon footprint and climate impact. Another threat is the growth of data centers in regions with a high share of fossil fuels: server farms in West Virginia generate almost twice as many emissions as in California.
AI already consumes up to 20% of data center electricity today. But by the end of 2025, this figure could increase to 50%, double the current level. The International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that an unchecked AI boom could derail climate commitments and reshape global energy systems.
We also recently published an article in which Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes that in the coming years, every profession will be transformed by AI, and the key threat is not robots, but people who are better at using them than you.
