Does Digital Technology Really Use a Lot of Energy?
10 min read
Smartphones, social media, connected devices, and generative AI are part of students’ daily lives. Yet every click relies on devices, networks, and data centers that use energy and natural resources. How can teachers explain these issues in the classroom? Understanding this hidden infrastructure helps students reflect on their own digital habits and connect technology, energy use, and the of digital technology.
© AFP - A data centre under construction in the United States to support the rapid growth of AI-related applications.
Behind Every Click Is Real Energy Use
When we use a digital service, everything seems immediate. A message arrives in seconds, a video starts instantly, and generative AI returns an answer almost at once. This simplicity hides a far more complex process. Each click triggers a series of operations performed by physical equipment located around the world.
What Happens When You Send a Message?
Take a message sent from a messaging app.
The smartphone first converts the text into digital data. The data then travels through an Internet router or mobile network, antennas, routers, miles of fiber-optic cable, and sometimes undersea cables before reaching a data center. Servers identify the recipient and send the message back to that person’s smartphone through the network.
| This journey is invisible to users, but it depends on equipment powered by : |
| 📱Smartphone or computer → 🛜 Internet router or mobile network → 📡 Antennas → 🔌 Fiber-optic cable → 🌊 Undersea cables → 🏭 Data center → 🤓 Recipient |
This example also shows that data never stays solely on the device being used. It constantly travels between different devices and infrastructures located across the country and sometimes even on the other side of the world.
The Information Chain
This flow of data is known as the information chain. It includes four main functions:
- Collect data, such as measuring a temperature, recording an image, or entering text.
- Transmit data through networks.
- Process data on a computer or in a data center.
- Store the data before delivering it to the user.
Devices, Networks, and Data Centers: What Uses Energy?
Digital technology depends on three main systems. Each one uses energy, but in a different way.
- User devices include smartphones, computers, tablets, televisions, game consoles, and connected devices. They use electricity during operation. Manufacturing them also requires metals, rare earth elements, water, and energy.
- Networks carry data. They include Internet routers, cellular antennas, fiber-optic cables, and undersea cables. Without networks, users could not send messages, stream videos, or access online services.
- Data centers house the servers that store data, host websites, and perform the calculations used by apps, search engines, and AI systems. They operate 24 hours a day and need cooling systems to prevent servers from overheating.
This organisation also helps introduce a second important concept: the energy chain.
While the information chain describes how data flows, the energy chain shows how electricity is generated, transported, and then used to power the various components of a digital system.
A smartphone cannot operate without a battery. A mobile phone antenna must be powered continuously. The servers in a data centre need electricity to process data. At every stage, energy is required.
The energy consumed during the use of digital devices is only part of their overall impact. To assess that impact, it is necessary to consider their entire life cycle: raw material extraction, component manufacturing, assembly, transportation, use, repair, reuse, and .
This approach, known as , is now widely used to compare the environmental impacts of digital products. It shows, for example, that for smartphones the manufacturing phase accounts for a significant share of its environmental impact. Keeping a device for longer is therefore often more effective than replacing it with a newer model.
Digital Technology’s Carbon Footprint in France
| Digital component | Share of | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Devices | 50% | Smartphones, computers, tablets, televisions |
| Data centers | 46% | Servers and data storage and processing infrastructure |
| Networks | 4% | Fixed and mobile networks that transmit data |
Source : ADEME
Why Do Some Digital Activities Use More Energy?
Not all digital activities use the same amount of energy. Energy use depends on the device, the amount of data transferred, the number of calculations performed, and how data is stored and transmitted.
- Texting a message requires only a small amount of data and relatively little processing power.
- Posting a photo on social media requires more data. The image must be transferred, stored on servers, and made available to other users.
- Streaming video uses infrastructure throughout the viewing session. Higher video quality means more data transfers.
- Online gaming constantly exchanges information about player movements, actions, and game status.
- Generative AI goes beyond retrieving existing information. It creates text, images, sound, or code through large numbers of calculations.
Why Does Artificial Intelligence Use So Much Energy?
Artificial intelligence supports translation, image recognition, recommendations, and online searches. Generative AI can also produce new text, images, sound, and code. To do this, it processes huge amounts of data and performs a very large number of calculations. This is why generative AI energy use has become an important educational topic.
When a user enters a question or instruction, known as a prompt, the AI analyzes the words, identifies relationships in the information learned during training, and builds a response. Specialized processors located in powerful data centers perform these calculations. The equipment also needs cooling.
For example, a student might ask a chatbot to explain . The AI creates a response that matches the request. If another student asks it to generate a poster showing a sustainable city in 2050, the system must produce a new image by calculating buildings, colors, shadows, textures, and many other details. These tasks require more computing power than opening an existing webpage or document.
AI is not only an energy challenge. Digital tools can also help reduce energy use in other sectors. They can:
- Forecast wind and solar power output based on weather conditions.
- Optimize power grids by balancing electricity generation and consumption.
- Automatically control heating, ventilation, and lighting in buildings.
- Predict industrial equipment failures through predictive maintenance.
- Optimize transportation routes to reduce or electricity use.
Like many innovations, AI offers benefits and creates challenges. Students need to learn how to use these tools thoughtfully and responsibly while considering both their value and their environmental impact.
Designing More Responsible Digital Technology
In the face of the environmental impact of digital technology, everyone can take action.
Make your devices last longer. Keeping a smartphone, computer or tablet for longer helps reduce the need to manufacture new devices, which accounts for a significant share of their environmental impact. Repairing a device or choosing a refurbished one also helps preserve natural resources.
Be mindful of how you use digital services. Before asking a generative AI tool to create ten images or write a long text, it may be worth asking a few questions. Could a search engine provide the answer? Could the information be found in a textbook or school library? Could a teacher, classmate or someone around you help? Do you really need a generated image, or would a royalty-free photograph meet your needs?
Similarly, watching a video in very high definition on a small screen, storing thousands of duplicate photos in the cloud, or keeping unnecessary files for years are practices that are worth reconsidering.
However, users are not the only ones who can take action.
- Designers of digital services can develop more energy-efficient software, limit unnecessary data transfers, reduce image file sizes and improve the energy performance of applications. This approach is known as eco-design.
- Companies can design devices that are easier to repair, extend their lifespan and improve material recycling, notably through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
- Public authorities can also encourage these changes through regulations, environmental standards and policies that promote repair, reuse and the circular economy.
Reducing the environmental impact of digital technology is therefore a shared responsibility involving users, designers, companies and public decision-makers.
Combining Digital Technology and Energy Sufficiency
Educational activity: Adopting Responsible Digital Habits
In class, students watch three short videos about everyday digital uses: email, online videos, and internet searches. Using these concrete examples, they identify which activities consume energy and discover simple actions that can help reduce the environmental impact of their digital habits.
After each video, you can discuss the topic with students and encourage them to identify the key responsible practices to remember avoiding oversized email attachments, deleting unnecessary messages, using Wi-Fi whenever possible, limiting ultra-high-definition streaming when it is not needed, and carrying out more effective online searches.
It helps students understand that their digital activities have environmental impacts, while showing them that simple changes in behaviour can make their use of digital technologies more sustainable and responsible.
Energy Sufficiency and Efficiency
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