AI is giving the green IT movement another lifeline

Like a beloved 90s boy band that just secured a Las Vegas residency, green IT is making a comeback.

IDC’s Global Sustainability Research Lead Bjoern Stengel told IT Brew that AI is triggering a “revival” of green IT discussions as concerns around the “sustainability footprint of IT infrastructure for AI” grows among businesses.

“That’s due to the carbon emissions [and] the water that’s needed for cooling AI infrastructure…There’s [also] a concern around the refresh cycles and what to do with all the existing equipment,” Stengel said in an April interview at IDC Directions.

Sustainable energy. Stengel isn’t the only professional who feels AI is giving the green IT movement some new momentum. Michael Gale, CMO at sovereign AI and data company EDB, said AI is causing a “radical shift” in green IT conversations. Previously, he said, green IT was a “transient subject” that companies engaged with voluntarily. Now those conversations are becoming more top-of-mind for businesses because of costs related to building out data centers and AI infrastructure, which can quickly spiral if they don’t make sustainable choices.

“It’s not the PCs you buy anymore or the lithium in that,” Gale said. “It’s the fact your monthly bill is going to go [up] and you’re going to see that.”

The rise of agents in the workforce and their continuous operation, for example, will drive up energy consumption, resulting in heftier bills for organizations footing them.

“The one thing about agents, they don’t have a meter that says, ‘Oh, I’m consuming electricity,’” Gale said. “They just consume it.”

How IT pros can have a green thumb. IT pros looking to maintain green IT goals in the AI era should be having the “footprint conversation” with infrastructure providers.

“How sustainable is the infrastructure? What are the carbon emissions? What are the cooling technologies that are being used? What are the energy efficiency stats?” Stengel said.

Gale said IT pros should also ask themselves about return on investment on every watt of energy used by AI at their organizations: “Otherwise, it’s just like consumption without purpose.”

Shanea Leven, CEO of AI service Empromptu AI, added change management is also important with the rise of citizen developers. She said IT pros need to teach new builders how to not waste energy when working with AI tools.

“You’ll see it on Twitter and Reddit of just, ‘We burned 1 million, 2 million credits doing this one task.’ That should not happen,” Leven said. “And so, being able to evolve with the kinds of people who are using this technology is something that I think more people besides us need to be doing.”