Report says estimates focused on GPUs miss the mountains of power, cooling, and networking gear destined for scrap.
AI infrastructure could generate enough electronic waste by 2050 to fill a line of shipping containers stretching around Earth six times, according to a report that argues existing estimates understate the problem.
Previous estimates have focused chiefly on servers and accelerators such as GPUs the report says. Once power, networking, cooling, and other infrastructure are included, the total could be 40 to 60 times higher than the most widely cited academic projections.
Together, these add up to about 7,000 metric tons for a reference 100 MW AI bit barn, much of which will have to be replaced when the facility is upgraded, it argues.
Comes from the Basel Action Network, a nonprofit organization named after the Basel Convention, which controls international movements of hazardous waste and seeks to prevent its transfer from developed to developing countries.
BAN's model starts with what the industry says it intends to build and calculates the potential waste implied by that expansion.
Placing 20 million of them end to end would create a line about 244,000 km long, or about six times Earth's circumference.
For example, the report says that when a facility replaces racks drawing between 5 and 15 kW with the 50-140 kW racks needed for AI workloads, much of its power infrastructure must be ripped out and replaced. A single 100 MW facility contains about 2,700 tonnes of copper in its cabling and busbars alone.