The AI Boom Will Increase US Carbon Emissions—but It Doesn’t Have To

As the world keeps warming and electricity bills take center stage in national politics, the data center boom will drive up US carbon emissions and electricity costs. But a few simple policies could help bring both emissions and prices back down.

That’s the message of a new analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists released Wednesday, which models a variety of scenarios for how to fuel the coming AI boom. The US is poised to see a 60 to 80 percent increase in electricity demand through 2050, with data centers alone making up more than half of the increase by the end of this

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