The AI data center e-waste problem is huge — and getting bigger
E-waste from the AI boom has been vastly underestimated, a new report warns. By 2050, it could become enough trash to fill 23 million shipping containers — roughly enough 40-foot containers to circle the world six times if lined up in a row.
It’s a significantly higher estimate of AI’s e-waste than previous studies have found because the authors of the new report factor in all the infrastructure needed to support servers in data centers. The broader scope provides a clearer picture of junk AI leaves behind, according to the nonprofit Basel Action Network (BAN), which published the paper today.
”AI may feel weightless, but every model depends on an enormous amount of highly specialized, cutting edge hardware,” Jim Puckett, founder and chief of strategic direction at BAN, says in a press release. “If companies and governments do not begin planning for this new waste tsunami, today’s AI...
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