The rapid proliferation of hyperscale data centers (HDCs) in the US, mainly driven by the adoption of artificial intelligence, has raised concerns about this industry's environmental footprint. We compiled facility-level information on 403 US hyperscale data centers operating between May 2024 and April 2025 and estimated their electricity consumption, electricity sources, and attributable CO2 emissions. Across different facility-load scenarios, these HDCs consumed approximately 68-99 TWh of electricity and were associated with about 37-54 million metric tons of CO2. Under the central scenario, HDC electricity demand corresponded to approximately 1.8% of total US electricity consumption, with roughly 54% of attributed generation supplied by fossil-fuel sources. The HDC electricity-weighted average carbon intensity was approximately 545 gCO2/kWh, about 48% above the contemporaneous US national grid-average carbon intensity of 370 gCO2/kWh. Our approach provides an attributional tool for assessing the environmental footprint of hyperscale data centers using the most recent EPA eGRID plant-level data.

翻译：人工智能的广泛应用推动了美国超大规模数据中心（HDCs）的快速扩张，引发了人们对该行业环境足迹的担忧。我们整理了2024年5月至2025年4月期间运营的403个美国超大规模数据中心的设施级信息，并估算了其电力消耗、电力来源及可归因的二氧化碳排放量。在不同的设施负荷情景下，这些HDCs消耗了约68-99太瓦时的电力，并产生了约3700-5400万吨二氧化碳。在中心情景下，HDC的电力需求约占美国总电力消耗的1.8%，其中约54%的归因发电量由化石燃料源提供。HDC的电力加权平均碳强度约为545克二氧化碳/千瓦时，比同期美国国家电网平均碳强度（370克二氧化碳/千瓦时）高出约48%。我们的方法提供了一种利用最新EPA eGRID电厂级数据评估超大规模数据中心环境足迹的归因工具。