This rash of articles about AI compute clusters and carbon footprints don't make any sense to me and seem like clickbait from "journalists" dying for a story to write, but too lazy to actually get off their kiesters and investigat something in the real world.

Energy is energy. You can get it from relatively low-carbon emitting energy sources like Nuclear and renewables (hydro, solar, wind, geothermal). You may power your server farm with a diesel generator, but that decision has nothing to do with the AI sector (or crypto sector, as much as I loathe it) itself and everything to do with the energy supply sector.

It's well known that "Carbon footprints" were developed by the oil and gas industry to take the blame off of them as the energy producers and redirect it on us as the energy consumers [1].

1. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...