Q&A: 'Digital lords,' AI's carbon footprint and greening tech

BRUSSELS - As the use of generative artificial intelligence ramps up, experts are raising the alarm about what this means for the environment and governments' commitments to cut planet-heating emissions to prevent runaway global warming.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Reuters last week that President Donald Trump's administration expected most of the country's coal-fired power plants to delay retirement to help deliver the vast amount of electricity needed to fuel AI.

Big tech companies like Google, Meta and Microsoft have made sustainability pledges, but environmental experts say the sector is not doing enough to reduce its energy and water usage, rising emissions or the potential flood of e-waste.

Benedetta Brevini, visiting professor at NYU and associate professor at the University of Sydney who specialises in  political economy of communications and tech says  these "digital lords" need to come clean about the environmental impact of generative AI and the data centres needed to power the technology, particularly in Europe.

Europe could see a record level of new data centres this year, according to investment and real estate group CBRE, as companies expand AI and cloud computing activities.

Brevini, who published the book "Is AI Good for the Planet?" in 2021, says the public also needs to question the utility of some AI applications. She spoke to Context during a recent visit to Brussels.

We see more data centres being built, often in places where natural resources are scarce. How big is the risk that this tech boom fuels inequalities?

I really contest this rootless type of development that does not consider the trade-offs. There are communities, very often in areas where you have constant droughts and constant floods, that really cannot cope with hosting data centres.

And let's remember that data centres don't bring jobs either. So we need to really think are we using water for our citizens? Are we using it for data centres? Just because you want to transform a resume into a poem? Is this the end game?

We have to choose the technologies we need, (such as) to further medicine, make better diagnoses. There are some technologies that we can decide if, in times of a climate crisis, we need them or not. 

Have you seen any research that could transform energy efficiency?

I have colleagues who are working on greening software and also greening data centres. And this type of research is very important.

Also, I'm really pushing for investment in green AI literacy, for example, to train the data scientists or the people who are using highly intensive computing for their research to ask questions about sustainability first.

And very often these people will tell you that they're given infinite resources, but they only needed one third of this. That is a very good way to reduce energy use. 

So how can we limit AI's climate impact?

The debate shouldn't be limited to data centres. It should be looking at the entire life cycle and global supply chain of AI. We need to connect the dots.

I've been challenged a lot by engineers telling me, 'Why are you constantly connecting AI to the entire global supply chain?'

Why? Because it's not AI, it's the internet technologies, it's ICT (information and communications technology). And AI is embedded in the entire global supply chain. Take the increase of Nvidia chips leading to a huge surge of e-waste. Who is generating it? It's the AI boom.

You must follow everything: the carbon footprint, the number of rare metals used in a new application, the water usage and where these devices will end up.

You need a strategy on deciding what kind of development Europe needs and to look at the infrastructures - taking them from the 'digital lords' - and make them public.

The BBC was launched as something that should be protected from the market because television and radio were considered to be too important. Because there was a public good ethos attached to it.

Why shouldn't it be the same case for AI? It's just that we lost our capacity to imagine something different.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

(Reporting by Joanna Gill; Editing by Ayla Jean Yackley.)