Gita Gopinath, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, expressed concern over the increasing energy consumption and carbon footprint of cryptocurrency mining and AI data centers, expected to worsen in the next few years.
What Happened: In an X post on Sunday, Gopinath stated, citing IMF data, that the share of cryptocurrency mining and data centers in global electricity could rise to 3.5% by 2027 in a base case scenario, from 2% in 2022. This would equate to the current consumption of Japan, the world’s fifth-largest electricity user.
In the high-case scenario, the share could expand to nearly 6%, while the low-case scenario would see a slight increase to 2.2%.