April 22 (Reuters) – Economic gains from artificial intelligence will boost global output by around 0.5% a year between 2025 and 2030, outweighing the costs of rising carbon emissions by the data centres needed to run AI models, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
An IMF report released at its annual spring meeting in Washington nonetheless noted that those output gains would not be shared equally across the world, and called on policymakers and businesses to minimise costs to broader society.

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„Despite challenges related to higher electricity prices and greenhouse gas emissions, the gains to global GDP from AI are likely to outweigh the cost of the additional emissions,” it said.

„The social cost of these extra emissions is minor compared with the expected economic gains from AI, yet it still adds to the worrisome buildup of emissions,” it said in the report titled „Power Hungry: How AI Will Drive Energy Demand”.

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