UNU: "If data centers were a country, this level of energy consumption would rank it 11^th in the world"

"Governments must integrate AI infrastructure into energy system planning, carbon accounting, water governance and land use permitting. This requires standardized environmental footprint reporting so impacts can be verified and compared across providers and jurisdictions", says the new report dedicated to AI's environmental footprint, released by the Institute for Water, Environment and Health of United Nations University, on 03/06/2026.

This analysis "goes beyond the carbon-only lens that typically dominates the conversation. It examines AI’s indirect environmental footprints through energy use, quantifying the carbon, water, and land footprints associated with generating the electricity required to operate AI at scale, and highlighting how outcomes vary substantially by location depending on electricity supply mixes", the institute specifies.

Furthermore, "by mid-2025, around 700 million people were using ChatGPT, sending about 18 billion messages each week", according to UN University report. Meanwhile, in 2025, data centers consumed an estimated 448 TWh of electricity. If data…