The Digital Footprint

Uncovering the energy behind the screen

Every search, stream, and AI generation runs in a data center that burns electricity and water. Drag the activities to compare their real-world impact — bump them together, and tap any one to see the figure and follow the evidence to its source.

Drag to move · tap an object for the evidence

Less energyMore energy Size & color scale with watt-hours used

Comparisons

Which digital task consumes more energy?

Trust your gut, then check the data. Inspired by what-uses-more.com.

Round 1 / 8 Score 0

VS

Data Center Impact

Your prompt is a drop. This is the ocean.

A single task is tiny — but billions happen every day inside warehouses of humming, heat-bleeding servers. Here's the scale your screen hides.

Global data-center electricity

~485 TWh / yr (2025)

Projected to nearly double to ~950 TWh by 2030 — more than Japan uses today. — IEA, Energy & AI (2025)

Where that energy goes

Cooling ~40%

Compute ~40%

Infrastructure ~20%

Cooling can rival the computing itself — and it often drinks water to do it.

Fun fact Generating one AI image can use roughly 10× the energy of a plain email — and AI video is far higher still.

Reality check A modern AI text reply is now estimated near a single web search — the footprint is in the scale, not your one question.

Build your day

Add up a day of digital life.

Drag tasks into your day (or tap to add) and watch the running total — and what it adds up to in things you can picture.

Resources

Make it yours — then take it with you.

No right answers here, only your reasoning. Everything saves locally on this device and appears in your report.

Follow the evidence

These sources are deliberately balanced — some bust myths, some sound alarms. Read across them.

My report

Saved locally ✓