Climate Tech: The AI Boom Rests on Billions of Tonnnes of Concrete: Why Tech's Climate Pledges Require the Reinvention of Concrete

Abstract

A ALONG THE COUNTRY ROAD that leads to ATL4, a giant data center going up east of Atlanta, dozens of parked cars and pickups lean tenuously on the narrow dirt shoulders. The many out-of-state plates are typical of the phalanx of tradespeople who muster for these massive construction jobs. With tech giants, utilities, and governments budgeting upwards of US $1 trillion for capital expansion to join the global battle for AI dominance, data centers are the bunkers, factories, and skunkworks-and concrete and electricity are the fuel and ammunition. ¶ To the casual observer, the data industry can seem incorporeal, its products conjured out of weightless bits. But as I stand beside the busy construction site for DataBank's ATL4, what impresses me most is the gargantuan amount of material-mostly concrete-that gives shape to the goliath that will house, secure, power, and cool the hardware of AI. Big data is big concrete. And that poses a big problem.