A few years ago, the question “does AI use too much electricity?” was treated as a marginal note in drafts of ESG reports. Today the answer is obvious: it does\u2014and at a pace that threatens the stability of power grids. The question that regulators from Brussels to Washington are now asking is different: who will pay for it?<\/p>
Estimates by international institutions suggest that a special tax on energy consumption by data centers could generate billions of dollars annually, correcting market distortions. According to experts, the current price of AI services is artificially low because it doesn’t account for externalities\u2014such as air pollution or water consumption\u2014that are ultimately borne by citizens rather than technology companies. For business, this is a wake-up call. If AI models become subject to targeted taxation, the entire economics of deployments, from chatbots to advanced predictive systems, could change drastically.<\/p>
In this dispute, it’s not about whether to protect the environment, but how to design fiscal mechanisms so as not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This is the core of the debate that took place during Generative Revolution Day \u2014 The rest of the article is below the video<\/em><\/p>