A fragmented Finnish lakeside landscape in shifting green and blue bands, digitally distorted to reflect the environmental costs of AI infrastructure.Explore the environmental dimensions of AI and data centers.
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TryHow does AI affect water use?What drives data-center energy demand?Which policies address AI’s footprint?How can computing become more sustainable?
2,738 public resources5 environmental systems5 pathways source context included
01
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Five environmental systems
Start with the part of the living world or built environment you care about.
A fragmented Finnish lakeside landscape in shifting green and blue bands, digitally distorted to reflect the environmental costs of AI infrastructure.
A paper collage of an Art Deco swimming pool in Brussels with its water replaced by rows of computer servers.
An aerial photograph of an orange sand mine and transport vehicles, interrupted by digital artifacts.03
Materials & circularity
Mining and material supply chains through hardware reuse and electronic waste.
84 resources
A school of fish circles beneath sunlit blue water while digital artifacts fracture the photograph.
Cooling pipes draw from a reservoir shared by data servers and people, against eroded soil textures.05
Resilient places & systems
Weather and adaptation, the built environment, and mobility.
537 resources02
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Five pathways through the collection
Move from impacts and environmental applications to governance and sustainable practice.
Three running human silhouettes assembled from circuit boards and processor hardware cross a smoky background.01
Environmental footprint of AI
Environmental pressures from AI computing and infrastructure.
791 resources
Red and yellow leaves sit beside a multidimensional pixelated close-up of a green leaf.02
AI for environmental action
Applications intended to understand, protect, restore, adapt, or decarbonize environmental systems.
875 resources
An early twentieth-century-style collage shows a technology executive offering innovation narratives in exchange for people’s data.03
Governance, justice, and political economy
Rules, institutions, distributional effects, community impacts, labor, finance, and accountability.
793 resources
A figure uses restoration tools to work carefully on a circuit board, as if conserving a painting.04
Measurement and sustainable practice
Methods to measure or reduce environmental impacts and improve computing practice.
493 resources
A close-up photograph of connected wires and dismantled hardware, focused on a black cylindrical Amazon component.05
Data centers
Energy, cooling, materials, communities, and the infrastructure behind AI.
494 resourcesRecently published sources
New evidence
Multimedia · 2026Data Centers: A Necessary Evil...Kinda || Peter ZeihanPodcast · 2026Data centers’ looming methane surgeMultimedia · 2026How much water do AI data centres actually use?Multimedia · 2026AI Factories That Use Less Power and Water, Built in Days | NVIDIA DSXPolicy Document · 2026Policy Brief(ly): Regulating Hyperscale Data Centers
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