AI is often described as a black box, but it’s not just its inner workings that are mysterious. Leading AI companies closely guard energy usage data, making it difficult to determine its climate impact. In a rigorous investigation, senior AI reporter James O’Donnell and senior climate reporter Casey Crownheart spent six months combing through hundreds of pages of reports, interviewing experts and crunching the numbers.
The team took an in-depth study of the energy cost of a single prompt, and then zoomed out to create a comprehensive picture showing the potential impacts of AI on current and future energy demand. Their work revealed how big the energy footprint of AI is, where that energy comes from, and who will pay for it. In the months following the project’s publication, major AI companies, including OpenAI, Mistral, and Google, published details about the energy and water use of their models.
The 2026 awards will be presented on May 19 in New York City.
