Lower environmental footprint by embracing green computing

Cloud computing has become an essential part of the digital infrastructure for government and businesses worldwide, enabling scalable and efficient operations. However, this widespread adoption comes with a significant environmental cost, including increased energy consumption and carbon emissions from data centers. As organizations look to align their operations with sustainability goals, green cloud computing is gaining attention as a solution to reduce the environmental footprint of digital services.

AI and the environment

Continuous innovation in AI and its applications is crucial for addressing global challenges like climate change. However, the computational power needed to sustain AI’s growth is doubling roughly every 100 days, leading to a significant rise in energy consumption. Consequently, the energy required to run AI tasks is also escalating, with annual growth rates between 26 percent and 36 percent. As organizations increasingly rely on cloud computing to support their AI initiatives, it becomes vital to establish proper guidelines and standards that mitigate the environmental impact of these technologies.

The GDA sub-working group on Sustainable AI is identifying gaps in measuring and testing different AI workloads to better understand the environmental footprint of this transformative technology. The group will publish its findings in a report ahead of COP30 in Brazil.

Energy-Efficient and Sustainable Software

This workstream aims to establish comprehensive, action-oriented guidelines for developing energy-efficient and sustainable software, enabling organisations to adopt practices that reduce environmental impact, enhance efficiency, and deliver measurable benefits. Key outcomes include alignment with global standards, quantification of sustainability opportunities, and the creation of accessible resources to drive adoption across the industry.