CS5720 - Environmental Impact of Deep Learning

The Hidden Cost of AI

⚠️ Climate Alert: Training a single large AI model can emit as much CO₂ as five cars over their entire lifetimes, including fuel consumption.

⚡

Energy Consumption

Massive computational requirements driving electricity usage
🏭

Carbon Emissions

Direct and indirect greenhouse gas production
💎

Resource Depletion

Rare earth materials and water consumption
🗑️

Electronic Waste

Hardware lifecycle and disposal challenges

1,287

MWh

GPT-3 Training Energy

626,155

lbs CO₂

Large Model Training

300,000

Liters

Data Center Cooling

35%

Annual Growth

AI Energy Demand

Exponential Growth:

Model sizes are doubling every 3-4 months, leading to exponentially increasing environmental costs.

Model Parameters (millions)

Training Time (hours)

GPU Type

Number of GPUs

Data Center Location