• Researchers find AI-related emissions will soon rival that of all the cars in California.
• AI electricity consumption could cause asthma deaths to spike by more than a third in the next six years.
• In Virginia alone, AI's backup diesel generators could lead to 190 air-pollution-related deaths.

Researchers have found that the training of one large AI language model — like Meta's Llama 3.1 — would generate as much air pollution as a car driving round-trip from New York to Los Angeles 10,000 times. The total cost of AI's health impacts, they found, could reach $20 billion within six years.

The team of researchers from the University of California at Riverside and the California Institute of Technology conducted what they say may be the first study of its kind assessing AI's impacts on air pollution. The paper, "The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health impact of AI," which will be released later today, finds that the generation of electricity for data centers hosting artificial intelligence applications could pollute the air so much that by 2030 an additional 1,300 people may die prematurely each year as a result.

That would be a 36% increase over the current annual asthma-related deaths in the country.

The researchers — led by Shaolei Ren of UC Riverside and CalTech's Adam Wierman — examined the release of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, which can penetrate deep into the lungs, by power plants and diesel generators associated with AI facilities.

The boom in artificial intelligence has resulted in a spike in electricity demand. McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, projects that data centers will use 11 to 12% of the total electricity consumed in the United States in 2030, up from 3 to 4% last year. While the carbon emissions and water usage implications of that growth have started to draw scrutiny, the direct health impacts of the air pollution these facilities generate have been mostly ignored.

"There is something like this, air pollution, which is affecting people right now," Ren said in an interview. "We aren't paying attention to it at all."

The researchers estimate that the generation of electricity for AI data centers could trigger roughly 600,000 asthma symptom cases a year by 2030.

Last year, the researchers estimate, the generative AI boom led to a public health burden of $5.6 billion. By 2030, they calculated, AI's electricity-related public health costs will top $20 billion. That's more than double the public-health costs of coal-based US steelmaking, they write, and will rival the emissions produced by California's 35 million cars.

The cost estimates are based on a risk assessment tool developed by the Environmental Protection Agency that assigns a dollar figure to what it would take to avoid negative health outcomes, such as premature deaths, asthma symptoms, heart attacks, and missed days of school or work.

For Ren, whose field of study is responsible artificial intelligence, his interest in air quality dates back to his childhood. He lived in a small mining town in China until the age of six, where he saw a correlation between poor air quality and adverse health outcomes in his community, including lung cancer.

The paper is what's called a preprint, a standard practice in computer science research in which researchers make a paper public before submitting it for peer review.

Diesel generators appear deadly in Virginia

The researchers also examined air pollution driven by emissions from diesel generators used by data centers for backup power and by the manufacturing of the silicone chips used in artificial intelligence.

To examine the impact of diesel-generators, the researchers looked at those permitted in Virginia, home to one of the densest collections of data centers in the world. Generators, according to the paper, produce 200 to 600 times the nitrogen dioxide per unit of power produced than a natural gas power plant.

"Diesel generators represent a major source of on-site air pollutants for data centers and pose a significant health risk to the public," the researchers wrote.

Even assuming that emissions by Virginia-permitted generators were just 10% of what the commonwealth's regulations allow, they would cause an additional 13 to 19 deaths each year. If the diesel generators emitted 100% of what is allowed, they would lead to 130 to 190 additional deaths, the researchers found.

The public health burden of Virginia's data center generators amounts to $220 million to $300 million a year under the 10% assumption and as much as $3 billion a year under the 100% assumption, according to the study.

The researchers found those health effects are not contained to the state, as air pollution travels. They found it's actually a county in Maryland — Montgomery County — that is most affected by Virginia's AI generators.

The effects, according to the EPA tool, would also be felt in West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,Washington D.C., and as far away as Florida.

"We thought the air pollution was limited to a small area," Ren said. "That's not true. There is actually cross-state air pollution." He and the other researchers found that the harmful effects are felt disproportionately by "economically-disadvantaged communities."

Ren said that understanding the broad dispersion of negative health outcomes could encourage AI companies to alter their site locations or AI training schedules. Health impacts are higher during the day, he said, and some locations have higher or lower health effects.

The researchers also call for greater transparency from the big tech companies that lead large language model training.

Those companies, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta don't currently detail the air pollution impacts of their AI operations in their annual sustainability reports, the researchers wrote.

"If you look at the sustainability reports from these companies, they mention carbon and water, but they don't mention anything about air pollution," Ren said. "They should start reporting this in the same way."

Oil wells from the Dutch colonial era lie scattered across Indonesia, polluting the earth and destroying locals' chances at making a living off anything but oil. We visited the workers who risk their lives daily to survive off the little oil that's left.

• Varun Badhwar lives in Delhi where toxic smog hit severe levels this week.
• Badhwar has lived in Delhi for 40 years and, despite pollution concerns, has not moved out.
• He told BI he values the melting pot community and family he has in the city.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Varun Badhwar, director for growth and monetization at Condé Nast India. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I've lived in Delhi my entire life — for four decades now — and I've seen it grow over the years into the melting pot that it is today.

Everyone is talking about the pollution in the city this week, but I've experienced it since I was a child.

I remember back in school we used to take these government buses with diesel engines. They would emit such huge clouds of black smoke that we would feel suffocated.

I bought my first air purifier in 2016, when people started talking more and more about the Air Quality Index (AQI). This week, when the AQI hit 1,500, I bought my third one.

At least three or four people in my circle have moved out of Delhi due to the pollution. The smog means people who develop breathing issues are advised not to stay here anymore.

I have considered leaving Delhi many times, but I still haven't.

Why Delhi's pollution problem is so bad

Our population in Delhi has skyrocketed in the last couple of decades with an influx of people coming in for jobs.

Our infrastructure didn't grow at the same pace, and maybe our government didn't anticipate it.

From a geolocation point of view, Delhi is also at a disadvantage because of the surrounding mountains. It's harder for the winds to sweep away the clouds of emissions, so they linger.

Our state is also close to agriculture-heavy states like Punjab and Haryana, where burning of crop residue is common and adds to the situation.

It's especially worse in the winters every year; there was a picture recently of a woman standing in front of the Taj Mahal and you can't even see it properly.

I do my part to stay safe. I try to stay indoors, keep physical activity to a bare minimum during the winter, and work out extra during the summer months until about August.

I drink a lot of hot water and ginger tea, stock up on air purifiers, and do my breathing exercises.

I usually escape to the hills, but it's no longer as sustainable

The situation has become so common that people who can afford to move out of the city to less polluted places during the winter. I tend to go to the hills every time the pollution spikes in Delhi, and usually, it gets better in a few days.

This time, it was more concerning. I went to the Kanatal hill station for three nights, and when I came back, my air purifier said the AQI was still 900.

But I don't want to leave Delhi. I was born and raised here, my extended family is here. About five years ago, I thought of moving to Canada, but I didn't pursue it because the opportunities were better for me here.

I think I'm better off in Delhi than somewhere I'd have to start all over again. It's hard to find a community like this outside.

Apart from the pollution problem, Delhi has a lot of positives. It's a melting pot, and especially after the tech boom in Gurugram, people come from all over the world.

The malls have the biggest brands in luxury and high fashion, the heritage and history are incredible, and the job opportunities are great. It's a great place to be.

• New Delhi reported severe levels of air pollution this week.
• Smog has led to school closures, a ban on construction, and flight disruptions.
• Titus Koshy, CEO of United Consultancy Services Group, told BI his employees struggle to commute.

Air pollution in India's capital, New Delhi, has become so severe that some people are struggling to commute to work.

Titus Koshy, CEO of United Consultancy Services Group which has more than 150 employees, told Business Insider that the toxic smog engulfing the city had made it difficult for his staff to come into the office.

"There's so much confusion. People can't reach the office, public transport is not accessible, it's very disruptive and we've had to work from home," he said.

Koshy added that some of his employees had complained about sore throats and viral infections over the past few weeks.

On Monday, the Air Quality Index in New Delhi was over 1,500, the BBC said, or 15 times the level the World Health Organization (WHO) deems satisfactory for breathing.

According to IQ Air, it improved to 186 on Thursday, a level still classed as "unhealthy." The United States Environmental Protection Agency considers anything over 300 as "hazardous" to health.

On Tuesday, Delhi's Chief Minister announced on X that schools would be shut and classes would be shifting online. Construction has also been banned in the city and some flights have been disrupted.

"These construction laborers are not going to be paid by anybody," said Koshy. "They didn't even let someone come in and install a geyser in my house. These workers will be impacted more than anyone else, what do they do?"

Delhi and the surrounding areas are home to offices of several multinational companies, including JP Morgan, KPMG, Cisco, and Mondelēz International.

Shubham Gupta, a consultant at KPMG, told BI that he tries to work from home as much as possible, but his company mandates in-office work at least two to three days a week. He wears an N-95 mask on those days, and relies on the office air purifier.

"Sometimes it hits my mind that I should leave Delhi, but after all, our livelihood is there, so how can we leave?" he said.

KPMG India said its teams can exercise the flexibility for remote working in consultation with their managers and based on their client commitments.

"All have been advised to travel to/from NCR/Delhi only if it's business critical," a spokesperson said in a statement. "Employee well-being continues to be our topmost priority and we will adapt ourselves as the situation evolves."

Smog in the city is worse during the post-monsoon winter months, especially when it is combined with the annual Diwali festival, dust storms, and mass burning of crop residue from neighboring states.

A 2019 study by the World Bank estimated the global cost of health damages associated with exposure to air pollution to be $8.1 trillion.