India, June 8 -- There is no nicotine patch, yet, for curbing the smoking caused by all the AI footprint and technology's compute hunger. This smoke is as addictive as it is injurious- specially at the pace AI appetite and infrastructure are billowing today.

New research underlines the fears and patterns already inked by AI's rise: Data centres are expected to consume twice as much power and water by 2030 as they expand to meet the surge in demand from ​AI. U.N. researchers' data shows that last year data centres consumed 448 terawatt-hours of electricity ​globally (AI, by the way, accounted for ⁠a fifth of the total). They guzzled up 4.5 trillion litres of water- spitting out 189 million tons of carbon dioxide emission...