Brussels to Big Tech: Embrace sustainable AI or go away

Ireland has emerged as one of the early warning signs. Data centers now consume more than 20 percent of the country’s electricity — the highest share per capita in the world — and a report published last week by Beyond Fossil Fuels and Friends of the Earth Ireland argued the boom has already added costs to household electricity bills.

Jørgensen warned that unless the sector becomes more integrated into local energy systems, political backlash could grow. “If they see [sustainability] as a disadvantage, then probably we are at a bad place,” he said.

One of the commissioners’s main concerns is the industry’s limited use of waste heat from servers, which is often released unused into the atmosphere. “If we use just half of the excess waste heat today, we could heat 4 million European homes,” Jørgensen said. “This is, in my view, unacceptable.”

Asked whether AI companies should help build and finance the energy infrastructure needed to power their data centers, Jørgensen said the approach would ultimately depend on national governments.

“This will be very different from member state to member state,” he said. “But there’s no doubt that these huge consumers of energy will also be driving the market, therefore supporting the transition that we want is important.”

The Commission currently has little data available on the energy use of data centers. Earlier reporting by POLITICO showed only 36 percent of data centers required to report energy-efficiency data under EU rules had done so.

“We need more transparency because they are a very important player,” Jørgensen said. “It’s also in their interest to show how well they’re doing and that they can be a part of the solution and not only a problem.”