The International Monetary Fund has published a report calling for an 85% electricity tax for cryptocurrency mining companies and data centers that support artificial intelligence. This is stated in the message of the IMF, reports “Delo.ua”.
According to the report, the AI sector and the mining industry currently consume 2% of global electricity, and this indicator may increase to 3.5% over the next three years.
These industries are also projected to collectively produce 1% of total global carbon emissions by 2027.
Additionally, AI-powered chatbots such as ChatGPT, consume 10 times more electricity than a regular Google search engine, due to the large volume of data center work.
The IMF believes that the introduction of the tax can help reduce carbon emissions and provide revenues to the state budget in the amount 5.2 billion dollars from crypto-currency companies and 18 billion dollars from the AI sector annually.
Experts of the institution are sure that this tax will force companies to be more responsible about electricity costs and environmental problems.
It should be added that US President Joseph Biden previously expressed a similar initiative, proposing to introduce a 30% tax on electricity for cryptomining companies.