One vision of the UK\u2019s future involves a decarbonised economy powered by clean, renewable energy. Another involves making the UK an AI superpower.<\/p>\n
The government departments responsible for these two visions do not appear to have agreed on their numbers.<\/p>\n
The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) thinks AI datacentres will consume 6GW of electricity by 2030<\/a>. The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) appears to think they will use less than a tenth of that.<\/p>\n Tim Squirrell, the head of strategy for the NGO Foxglove, said: \u201cThe government\u2019s cluelessness over the environmental impact of datacentres would be laughable, if it weren\u2019t so alarming.\u201d<\/p>\n Cecilia Rikap, a researcher at University College London, said: \u201cThere are two ways to interpret this \u2018misalignment\u2019: either DESNZ and DSIT are incompetent, or there\u2019s some kind of magical thinking about AI and big tech. Either way, the episode uncovers how these corporations control not only the AI value chain, but also the UK government.\u201d<\/p>\n DESNZ is responsible for the UK\u2019s carbon budget growth and delivery plan, which sets out how the government will reach its international climate targets.<\/p>\n In January, Foxglove filed an environmental impact assessment request with the department, asking how it had incorporated AI datacentres into its projections for Britain\u2019s emissions. In response, DESNZ referred researchers to its broader forecasts for the energy use of Britain\u2019s \u201ccommercial services\u201d sector, and said it did not hold separate projections for datacentre growth.<\/p>\n The forecasts appear to project that the energy use of the entire sector will grow by 528MW between 2025 and 2030 \u2013 equivalent to adding the consumption of 1.7m homes by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n This projection is 10 times lower than the amount of electricity the government has committed<\/a> to AI datacentres as part of its UK compute roadmap<\/a>. That policy paper, put forward by DSIT in 2025, sets out a \u201cbold, long-term plan to transform our national compute ecosystem\u201d by building AI datacentres.<\/p>\n It adds: \u201cWe forecast that the UK will need at least 6GW of AI-capable datacentre capacity by 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n This will come from multiple AI growth zones \u2013 hubs across the country where the government is attempting to attract investment into datacentres. Each would require at least 500MW of electricity \u2013 an amount only slightly less than DESNZ\u2019s forecast for the increase in energy usage of the entire commercial services sector.<\/p>\n It is unclear how the discrepancy between the two departments\u2019 forecasts arose. But one day after the Guardian requested comment from DSIT and DESNZ, DSIT appears to have revised its figures published on its website for the total emissions of the AI datacentre sector, raising them more than a hundredfold.<\/p>\n Originally, DSIT\u2019s projections for the carbon emissions of additional AI computing capacity were between 0.025m and 0.142m tonnes of carbon equivalent (MtCO\u2082) \u2013 below 0.05% of Britain\u2019s projected emissions. These figures were in an annexe to the compute roadmap.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, that document was removed from the government website after Carbon Brief raised questions about the plausibility<\/a> of the figures. On Thursday, after the Guardian asked about them, DSIT updated its numbers.<\/p>\n