It is most alarming that data centers in Virginia already account for 25 percent of the state’s energy consumption (“Data centers: power play or energy drain?: Expansion to test limits of local electric markets,” Page A1, June 8). This rate of power consumption is not sustainable, and will derail our attempts to decarbonize the production of electricity. One has to ask, “Do we really need this?”
Were our online searches really so bad in the days before artificial intelligence, only a few years ago? My email now comes with an AI-generated summary, which is frequently wrong. I think AI has been oversold, which would not be so bad except for its role in exacerbating our environmental problems.
We need to devise a way to limit the power consumption of computing centers, both for AI and for energy-intensive bitcoin mining. Perhaps they should be required to build out green power generation capacity equal to or in excess of their own needs — a notion cited in Sabrina Shankman’s article.