Shaolei Ren

AI's carbon & water costs are known. But, an immediate toll of AI-- already affecting people's health -- has been largely overlooked. @AdamWierman Our study reveals US data centers could create a $20+ billion public health burden each year in 2030. arxiv.org/abs/2412.06288

Thirsty for power and water, AI-crunching data centers sprout across the West The rapid proliferation of data centers in the western United States, particularly in areas like Silicon Valley and Phoenix, is reshaping local economies and communities, driven by the growing demands…

Has AI energy efficiency improved over the last few years? Perhaps not yet in real-world deployments. My reflections on @MistralAI's recent disclosure about the environmental impact of its LLM: linkedin.com/posts/shaolei-…

Interesting to see the water numbers... Though, "consumption" and "withdrawal" can be further distinguished.

New EPA 50-Hour Rule: What It Means for AI Data Centers, Demand Response, and Public Health. It means we need more health-informed approaches to advancing AI while protecting public health: linkedin.com/posts/shaolei-…

Andrew A. Chien (@UChicago) and Hartmut Schmeck describe the ten articles in the Special Section on Sustainability and Computing, which calls for #InnovativeThinking, radical ideas, and reinvention to address the #environmental impact of computing and #AI, bit.ly/3TgsvdX

"Toward Environmentally Equitable AI," by @MHajiesmaili (@ManningCICS), @RenShaolei (@UCRiverside), Ramesh Sitaraman (@UMassAmherst), and @AdamWierman (@Caltech), proposes #environmental #equity to mitigate AI’s uneven #environmental costs to regions. bit.ly/3FVkrfJ

"Making AI Less ‘Thirsty’" by Pengfei Li (@UCRiverside), @Jianyi89053518 (@UHouston), @MohammadAtiqul4 (@UTArlington), @RenShaolei (#UCRiverside), says it’s critical to address AI’s water footprint to ensure that it does not worsen global water stresses. bit.ly/43LnlN4

Artificial intelligence threatens to raid the water reserves of Europe’s driest regions ow.ly/VMKW106afRq

A Berkeley paper: "The widespread deployment of CCS to meet the 1.5d climate target would almost double anthropogenic water footprint. Consequently, this would likely exacerbate and create green and blue water scarcity conditions in many regions worldwide" sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

EU is introducing water usage caps for data centers. 10 years ago, we published a paper in IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing on how to operate data centers efficiently under water usage caps: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/71528… bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

As AI drives explosive data center growth, concerns about water use are rising — but transparency remains limited. Uptime’s latest survey reveals only 43% of operators track water consumption, and few disclose it clearly. Read more in CBA National: okt.to/in7bZh

A new study shows that advanced cooling tech can cut emissions by 15% and water consumption by 50%. Learn more about how we’re rethinking datacenter cooling. msft.it/6002SrJIu

For years, data centers have strained local water supplies. The AI boom has made this issue much worse. 🔗: bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-…

A Bloomberg News analysis finds that roughly two thirds of new data centers built or in development in the US since 2022 are in places with high levels of water stress. bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-…

Among other things, water is used to cool the data centers that run AI models and the power plants that provide energy to those computing facilities. sfexaminer.com/news/technolog…

Data centers are responsible for harmful air pollutants that contribute to asthma, heart attacks, and cognitive decline. Researchers @renshaolei of @UCRiverside and @AdamWierman of @Caltech argue that it's time for health-informed AI solutions. spectrum.ieee.org/data-centers-p…

In 2023, one tech company directly "consumed" 24x water in its data centers as in its office buildings. For another, the ratio was 21x. Couldn't find data for others. Water consumption is a technical term defined as "water withdrawal minus water discharge".

Grateful for the opportunity to attend the expert meeting and support this evidence-based GAO report!