Data centers built for artificial intelligence could generate between 395 million and 617 million metric tons of electronic waste from 2025 to 2050. That is the estimate in a 46-page report from the Basel Action Network.
The total would fill 15 million to 23 million shipping containers. Lined up end to end, they would stretch about 244,000 kilometers, roughly six times around the Earth.
Not just GPUs
The authors estimate that a 100-megawatt AI data center holds about 7,000 metric tons of equipment. That includes networking gear, power distribution, backup power, accelerator servers and cooling. Cabling and busbars alone contain about 2,700 tons of copper.
Servers and accelerators make up only 13 percent of the weight. As a result, the report's totals are 40 to 60 times higher than widely cited academic projections that count only computing hardware.
Short lifespans
GPUs and accelerators are replaced every two to three years, compared with five to seven years for traditional servers. Networking gear lasts three to four years, and cooling and backup power about five. Power distribution lasts around eight.
Jim Puckett, the network's founder, says no major company, government or international body has published a plan for that volume of waste. Even current volumes, he says, have nowhere to be processed safely.
"If companies and governments do not begin planning for this new waste tsunami, today's AI buildout could become an even more cataclysmic toxic waste crisis than we are already experiencing," Puckett says.
