BAN report warns AI e-waste could circle Earth six times by 2050

A report from the Basel Action Network (BAN) warns that retired equipment from the artificial intelligence boom could generate 395–617 million tonnes of electronic waste between 2025 and 2050. BAN says that amount would fill 15–23 million 40ft shipping containers. Placed end to end, they could circle Earth six times.

TechRadar's Craig Hale reports that BAN links the growth partly to the limits of Moore's Law. AI operators are deploying specialized accelerators alongside GPUs, cooling equipment, networking systems and other hardware.

Global data center capital expenditure is expected to reach $7 trillion between 2025 and 2030, with $4.3 trillion attributed to electronic hardware, according to the report. BAN says earlier estimates often counted only servers and accelerators, representing about 13% of the total. Networking, power distribution, storage and backup, and cooling make up the other 87% and are largely unaccounted for.

BAN estimates that each additional 1GW of data center capacity requires around 70,000 tonnes of electronics. It also anticipates 100GW of additional capacity globally by the end of this decade. AI accelerators, servers and racks may be replaced every 2.5 years, compared with 5–7 years for general-purpose servers. BAN describes these figures as speculative estimates and suggests longer-lasting equipment, recycling and second use as ways to reduce the impact.