The strong and continuous increase of AI-based services leads to the steady proliferation of AI data centres worldwide with the unavoidable escalation of their power consumption. It is unknown how this energy demand for computational purposes will impact the surrounding environment. Here, we focus our attention on the heat dissipation of AI hyperscalers. Taking advantage of land surface temperature measurements acquired by remote sensing platforms over the last decades, we are able to obtain a robust assessment of the temperature increase recorded in the areas surrounding AI data centres globally. We estimate that the land surface temperature increases by 2°C on average after the start of operations of an AI data centre, inducing local microclimate zones, which we call the data heat island effect. We assess the impact on the communities, quantifying that more than 340 million people could be affected by this temperature increase. Our results show that the data heat island effect could have a remarkable influence on communities and regional welfare in the future, hence becoming part of the conversation around environmentally sustainable AI worldwide.

翻译：人工智能服务的强劲持续增长导致全球AI数据中心数量稳步增加，其功耗也不可避免地攀升。目前尚不清楚这种计算能源需求将如何影响周边环境。本文聚焦于AI超级数据中心的热量散逸问题。利用过去几十年间遥感平台获取的地表温度测量数据，我们得以对全球AI数据中心周边区域的温度升幅进行可靠评估。研究发现，AI数据中心开始运营后，周边地表温度平均上升2°C，形成局地微气候区——我们称之为"数据热岛效应"。我们进一步量化了这一效应对社区的影响，估算表明超过3.4亿人可能受到温度升高的影响。研究结果显示，数据热岛效应未来可能对社区及区域福祉产生显著影响，因此应成为全球环境可持续性AI议题的重要组成部分。