AI could generate e-waste equal to 250 Eiffel Towers a year by 2030, UN warns

The AI boom the world is witnessing nowadays is set to extract heavy environmental costs from humanity in coming years, the United Nations has warned in a new alarming report published on Wednesday.

A comprehensive report by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health explores the significant and often overlooked environmental strain caused by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence.

According to the report, data centers and AI models would rely on massive resource consumption. For instance, by 2030, AI could consume nearly 3 percent of the world’s electricity. Currently data centers currently use energy comparable to the entire nation of France.

In 2025, data centers equipped with servers and cooling systems consumed an estimated 448 terawatt-hour of electricity in 2025.

When it comes to generating the electronic waste, AI could generate massive amounts of electronic waste, estimated at the equivalent of 250 Eiffel Towers annually by 2030.

In 2025, data centers used approximately 9.3 trillion litres of water for cooling purposes. As per report by 2030, the AI could consume enough water to quench the drinking needs of all 8.1 billion people on Earth for over 1.5 years.

The report states, “Low-carbon is not automatically low-water or low-land, and evaluating sustainability through a single metric can hide trade-offs and shift burdens onto places already facing water stress or land pressure.”

Moreover, the report emphasizes the renewable paradox as transitioning to alternative energy sources like bioenergy can reduce carbon footprints but increase water and land usage by a factor of 100.

Professor Te Taka Keegan of the AI Institute at the University of Waikato, said, “The environmental burden falls hardest on communities least likely to capture the benefits. As AI is embedded into everyday platforms and switched on by default whether users choose it or not, that footprint compounds at scale.”

Moreover, the UN researchers also urge the governments and tech companies to start taking into account water and energy needs while building AI infrastructure and data centers because the advancement should always be “environmentally manageable and sustainable.”