Air quality and health impacts of Data Center electricity demand in the United States

Yuang Chen , Shen Wang, Juan Ramon L Senga, Andrew Scott White, Anthony Y. H. Wong, Lyssa M Freese, Michelle L. Bell, Noelle Eckley Selin 

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence is associated with a substantial growth in electricity demand from data centers in the US, yet the resulting air quality and public health impacts remain poorly quantified. Data centers represent large, near-continuous demands that fundamentally alter power system dispatch and emissions. To quantify the ambient air pollution and associated premature mortality impacts of grid-supplied data center electricity demand in 2023, we couple the United States Electricity Generation Optimization (US-EGO) model with the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model. Our results show that electricity generation attributable to data center demand is largely supplied by fossil fuel units across multiple regions, resulting in additional annual mean PM2.5 concentrations of 0.02--0.08 μg/m3 (local peak concentrations up to ~0.2 μg/m3), and regionally varying ozone responses characterized by wintertime depletion and summertime enhancement. These impacts are most pronounced in the Midwest United States, where marginal emissions from coal-fired units and ammonia-rich atmospheric conditions enhance secondary particulate formation. We estimate that this grid-supplied demand is responsible for 513 (95% CI: 469--557) annual premature mortalities from PM2.5 and an additional 137 (95% CI: 90--183) annually from maximum daily 8-hour average ozone (MDA8-O3) in the continental US. State- and county-level analyses reveal a systematic mismatch between where data center load is hosted and where associated mortality burdens occur. The spatial distribution of these adverse air quality impacts is driven by regional generation mixes, inter-regional electricity flows, and atmospheric transport, rather than local proximity to data centers. These results show that sustained computing demand adds air quality health burdens through coupled energy and environmental systems, highlighting the necessity of incorporating air quality into data center siting and macro-energy system planning.