AI data center e-waste - ai data center e waste ban report 2050 a shipping container box with one ridged end face

The AI Data Center E-Waste Problem Is Huge — and Getting Bigger

September 17, 2026
Artificial Intelligence
Comment off

The Basel Action Network published The Coming AI Waste Wave on 15 September 2026, projecting 395 to 617 million tonnes of AI-driven electronic equipment retired between 2025 and 2050 — 15 to 23 million forty-foot shipping containers, or about six laps of the Earth end to end. The figure is roughly 40 to 60 times higher than the most widely cited academic projection, and the reason is scope rather than growth: every earlier study counted servers and accelerators, which are only 13 percent of a data center’s electro-mechanical mass. This article works through the 70,000 tonnes per gigawatt constant, the five equipment categories and their replacement cycles, the downstream AI Waste Contagion that turns out to be the larger half of the total, the arithmetic behind the container claim, and the report’s own arguments for why it might be wrong in either direction.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul Thinks AI Should Be ‘Less Evil’

August 31, 2026
Artificial Intelligence
Comment off

In a Decoder interview published 31 August 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul called AI “in one sense a necessary evil” and challenged the industry to “make it less evil”. This piece walks through what she actually said: the Executive Order 62 moratorium on hyperscale data centers of 50MW or more, the 30 applications that triggered it, St. Lawrence County’s one-reactor problem, the AI review of state regulations that saved 1.5 million hours, the 81 percent of likely-displaced jobs held by women, her Flock camera objections, the Meta teen-safety settlement, and what her “less evil” standard signals for businesses deploying AI.