Photo source: The Decoder By Naveed Qazi, Sustainability Analyst  F or much of the past decade, artificial intelligence has been marketed as a technological breakthrough that would make organisations more efficient, reduce labour costs and unlock extraordinary productivity gains. The narrative was simple and compelling. Machines would assume routine tasks, businesses would operate with fewer employees and economic output would increase. Investors embraced the vision, executives repeated it and consultants built entire strategies around it. Yet as artificial intelligence moves from experimentation to large-scale deployment, a more complicated picture is emerging. The systems expected to reduce costs are themselves becoming major cost centres. Across the technology industry, companies are discovering that advanced AI requires enormous expenditures on computing infrastructure, specialised hardware, electricity and maintenance. The economics of automation are proving less straightforwa...

Photo source: Never Blue IT By Naveed Qazi, Sustainability Analyst   A s one of the most influential technologies of our era, artificial intelligence is reshaping the sectors of public administration, financial system, scientific research, and everyday life. Behind its presence lies a deeply physical infrastructure, made up of data centres, semiconductor factories, fibre networks, and global mineral supply chains. The technology relies on an infrastructure dependent on electricity, water, land, and materials at a scale, which is not widely apparent in public debate. However, what is conclusive now through international evidence is that AI is not environmentally neutral, even if its global footprint remains partially measurable. The major starting point for the analysis on this issue would be the measured data on global digital ecosystems. The International Energy Agency reports that global energy consumption has been rising steadily, around 1 to 1.5 percent, and that electricity de...