Air pollution, the other environmental and health threat of AI

Llama 3, the competitor to ChatGPT 4 developed by Metagenerated as much air pollution as 10,000 round trips by car between New York and Los Angeles. In European units, this is approximately equivalent to as many round trips between Paris and Beirut.

These figures reach from a pre-publication study led by researchers at Caltech and Riverside universities in California. The study does not simply examine the obvious environmental impacts of AIbut she is also interested in air pollution caused by the data centers that power chatbots such as ChatGPT. It also highlights the concrete consequences on the health of populations living nearby.

Increased risks for the poorest populations

Whether during the manufacturing of the components necessary for their operation or during their use (supported by energy that is not always very clean), data centers are responsible for the presence of many potentially dangerous fine particles in the air. for health. The study cites in particular sulfur dioxide or nitrogen dioxide.

According to Adam Wierman, one of the co-authors of the study, if nothing is done, air pollution generated by data centers dedicated to AI could cause 1,300 premature deaths in the United States by to 2030. Across the Atlantic, fine particles are responsible for 94,000 premature deaths, compared to 40,000 in France. By then, the health burden of this industry could be equivalent to all bus, truck and car traffic in California.

Exposure to these pollutants is linked to cases of asthma, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease or even cognitive degeneration, notes the study. And the risks are not exactly the same for everyone. Poor neighborhoods located next to power plants or data centers are obviously more exposed, even if particles readily travel beyond these neighborhoods and sometimes even beyond these cities.

And in France?

If the study focuses mainly on the United States, a country with an energy mix that is still very carbon-intensive, France is not completely spared from the phenomenon. The country has around 250 commercial data centers, more than half of which are located in Île-de-France. Here too, it is in Seine–Saint-Denis, the poorest department in mainland France, that we find the most of them.

Although energy production in France is largely based on nuclear power, which does not pose the same problems as fossil energy consumption, the risks are not neutral. The storage and use of fuel oil necessary for the operation of emergency generators can pose health problems, as can the release of eternal pollutants into the water used for cooling servers.

Very concretely, in Marseille, at the end of 2024, the company Digital Realty received a formal notice “to prevent serious and imminent dangers for health, public safety or the environment” generated by the leak of fluorinated gases. Add to that fire risks as we saw at OVH in 2020 and you get facilities to monitor very, very closely.