Radboud paper warns AI could match Netherlands energy by 2027

Writing a 100-word email with AI technologies consumes half a liter of water, four Radboud University researchers write in a paper posted to Zenodo in June 2025. By 2027, they argue, "the AI industry will use half the amount of water as does the United Kingdom annually," and "AI industries could consume as much energy as the Netherlands by 2027."

The piece, by Marcela Suarez Estrada, Barbara Müller, Olivia Guest and Iris van Rooij, calls that trajectory "hegemonic AI" and treats it as structurally extractive. The costs land unevenly. "This is particularly worrying in the Global South which is rich in resources and so attracts predation," the authors write, where "natural and human resources are stolen from local territories, leading to scarcity, displacement, and violence."

The target of the paper is universities. "Universities are not spokespersons for the AI industry," the authors write, and "have the responsibility not to blindly adopt AI in research, education." For critique that stops at seminars and op-eds, they coin a label: "Critical reflection without appropriate action is thus quintessentially critical washing."

The Zenodo record logs 6,541 views and 1,665 downloads since posting, and two of the researchers we track have shared the paper directly.

The authors attribute the Netherlands and UK comparisons to "one study" and to projections, not their own measurements. The piece reads as an argument, not an audit.