Officials hugely underestimated impact of AI datacentres on UK carbon emissions | AI (artificial intelligence)

The UK government significantly underestimated the climate impact of artificial intelligence (AI), with officials raising their estimate of carbon emissions from AI datacentres by over 100 times.
New data suggests that energy use by AI datacentres in the UK could lead to emissions of up to 123 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO₂) over the next decade, which is equivalent to emissions from 2.7 million people.
Previous estimates had claimed emissions would be much lower, reaching a maximum of 0.142 MtCO₂ in one year, but this has been deleted.
The revision comes amid growing concern about the carbon impact of AI, with urgent calls for the world to reduce emissions to address the climate emergency.
AI datacentres require large amounts of electricity, most of which continues to be generated by fossil fuels, significantly impacting the UK’s net zero commitments.
According to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s, the carbon impact of planned AI infrastructure could range from 34 to 123 MtCO₂ by 2035, depending on efficiency improvements and decarbonization of the energy grid.
The government’s revision follows criticism from watchdog Foxglove and Carbon Brief, which pointed out the inadequacy of initial estimates.
Officials from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology made the revision in response to these investigations, despite the government declining to comment on the updated figures.

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