CAMBRIDGESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL SETs GROUNDBREAKING POLICY TO LIMIT THE CARBON IMPACT OF AI

Cambridgeshire County Council this week became one of the first Councils in the UK to set guardrails around the use of Artificial Intelligence because of the climate change implications of unnecessary use.

“The Carbon emissions from use of generative AI are orders of magnitude greater than traditional IT.” warned Cllr Ian Manning, technology expert and member of the Environment & Green Investment Committee. “Like all tools, it has its uses, but we should remember the downsides for the climate when we use it”.

The Council Environment & Green Investment committee passed its new climate change strategy on 21st January, and included in it a target to monitor the use of Artificial Intelligence across Council services. 

Cllr Manning added: “Once again this demonstrates the wider benefit of carbon reduction work: it gives us a lens through which to consider when and if we should use generative AI, and how to monitor its use through the token usage which gives a more accurate measure of the carbon impact.”

Cllr Manning further noted the danger of the Labour Governments push for energy intensive data centres with a lack of regulation on how they are run.