Many data centres are privately funded by US tech giants, such as Google and Microsoft, and major investment firms.
But most current owners do not share data about their environmental impact, something Prof Basiri said needed to change.
She added: “We can’t really measure this because, of course, there is not necessarily a big mandate from the government to report on the detail of the energy or water use of data centres or other big tech companies that exist and that’s a massive challenge.”
Prof Basiri said one way to ensure that data centres were more sustainable would be to set carbon targets for companies and impose tax penalties for exceeding them.
The academic said the power used by an AI tool, such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, was about 13 times higher than a simple Google search.
She said ordinary people could play their part by considering their “AI footprint”.
Prof Basiri added: “For example, reducing the number of times we go to these AI chatbot systems when a Google search would be efficient or considering how you use image generation, or what you attach to an email.”