Recently, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released its latest "Digital Economy Report 2024" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). The report stated that although digitalization has driven global economic growth and provided unique opportunities for developing countries, its impact on the environment is also becoming increasingly serious.
The report mentioned that new technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, 5G and the Internet of Things have a growing demand for data transmission, processing and storage, which has also increased greenhouse gas emissions.
It is estimated that the energy consumption of global data centers in 2022 will be equivalent to that of France, and the global energy consumption generated by Bitcoin "mining" has increased by about 34 times between 2015 and 2023. This puts great pressure on local power grids. For example, data centers in Singapore accounted for about 7% of the country's electricity demand in 2020, while in Ireland, this proportion was as high as 18% in 2022. (Yicai)