The California legislature this year is moving to address the massive resource demands of data centers that power artificial intelligence.
The AI boom has spurred tech companies’ efforts to build more data centers, which draw on huge amounts of electricity and also require millions of liters of water to cool servers. The ramp-up comes as California residents and businesses are grappling with higher-than-average energy rates fueled by wildfire recovery costs and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Four bills introduced last month by state lawmakers would be good first steps in mitigating water and electricity consumption from AI, Shaolei Ren, ...