As artificial intelligence technology progresses, we can expect Europe to also put on the batteries and begin to build more data centers, those machine farms necessary to concentrate all the information that IAS use. Well, citizens will be aware of where these centers are built, because as a government document of the United States corroborates, data centers are not completely harmless to health.
If we already knew that data centers can be a huge water expense, to this we must add the potential air pollution they carry. An executive order signed by the outgoing president of the United States, Joe Biden, indicates that the new centers must be built where “the total risk of cancer due to air pollution is equal to or lower than the national average according to the AirToxSCreen 2020 tool of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) », as the country collects.
From Europe we can also take note of this. Data centers can emit air pollution by gases such as nitric oxide or PM2 particles, which are expelled in the air generation process for the centers.
This concern for the air pollution of the data centers is corroborated by a study Scientific, pending review, which focuses on estimating the severity of possible diseases caused by the contamination of data centers.
With all this, we see that citizens not only have arguments to demand that no centers are built in areas with drought problems, but they can also issue complaints to construction plans of data centers very close to populated environments.
None of this implies that data centers contaminate to a greater extent than other daily industrial activities, but remind us that data centers are not neutral at the energy and health level, requiring a large amount of electricity and also contaminating.
If the conclusions of the aforementioned academic study are confirmed, there will be reasons to ask the authorities to try to raise the new data centers in preferably deserted or remote areas of urban nuclei, to avoid as much as possible a damage to the quality of the air .
In 2022 there were some 23 placement data centers in Spain, the type of center that demands the most energy, dedicated to hosting data from other companies. About 11 in Madrid, 2 in Valencia, another 2 in Seville and the others in Malaga, Jaén, Toledo, Huelva, Castellón, Alicante, Barcelona and Zaragoza.
The environmental cost of AI
The research called “the unpaid cost: quantification of the impact on the public health of AI” states in their conclusions that “US data centers in 2030 could contribute to almost 1,300 deaths a year, which would result in a burden public health of more than 20 billion dollars that could even exceed that of California road broadcasts ».
Therefore, academics recommend “adopting a standard notification protocol for air pollutants and public health costs, paying attention to all affected communities and implementing an AI based on health to mitigate adverse effects and, At the same time, promote equity in public health ».
