Part 2/9:
The number of data centers has doubled from 2015 to 2024, reaching over 7,000 globally. Bloomberg projects that their energy consumption will surpass that of Italy by 2034, demanding as much energy as the entire country. This explosive growth is largely driven by the advent of generative AI, with leading corporations like Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google reporting a massive increase in energy use to accommodate their AI workloads. For example, the power needed for a single request to a generative AI service like ChatGPT is roughly 2.9 watt-hours, which is about ten times that of a conventional Google search.