The AI Boom and Accelerating Demands
While traditional internet usage and video streaming have steadily increased energy demands for over a decade, the explosive rise of generative artificial intelligence has fundamentally transformed the scale of digital resource consumption.Training Versus Inference
The environmental footprint of AI is divided into two primary phases: training and inference.- Model Training: Teaching large language models requires digesting colossal datasets over weeks or months using specialized hardware clusters, demanding continuous, massive blocks of electricity.
- Inference: This refers to the real-time processing of billions of individual user queries executed across the globe every single day.