E-waste from AI boom and building data centers could stretch six times around the Earth by 2050, report warns
- BAN says 87% of data center hardware isn't actually accounted for in most figures
- Each 1GW of capacity equals 70,000 tonnes of hardware
- AI hardware needs more frequent replacing
A new Basel Action Network (BAN) report has claimed the ongoing AI boom could create a new stream of e-waste, with retired equipment from AI alone likely contributing 395-617 million tonnes between 2025 and 2050.
To put that into context, BAN says that waste would fill 15-23 million 40ft shipping containers, which, placed end-to-end, would be enough to circle the earth six times over.
Ultimately, Moore's Law is to blame because developers are no longer able to achieve such great improvements in performance year-over-year, so they're having to introduce whole new types of technology.
AI will likely lead to massive amounts of e-waste
For example, AI companies are now having to deploy huge numbers of specialized AI accelerators alongside GPUs, cooling...
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