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Basel Action Network report warns AI e-waste could fill 23 million shipping containers by 2050
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A new report from the nonprofit Basel Action Network suggests AI-driven e-waste has been underestimated by excluding supporting data center infrastructure.
The report expands the scope of AI waste to include cooling, power, and networking equipment, suggesting a much larger environmental footprint than previous server-only estimates. This indicates that the physical cost of scaling AI capacity extends far beyond the GPUs themselves.
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AI is projected to contribute 15 to 20 percent of the 211 million metric tons of annual global e-waste by 2050.
The report estimates 70,000 metric tons of e-waste are generated per gigawatt of data center capacity.
AI-related equipment retired between 2025 and 2050 could total between 395 and 617 million metric tons.
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The Basel Action Network (BAN) argues that previous e-waste studies were too conservative because they focused almost exclusively on servers and accelerators. By ignoring electro-mechanical infrastructure, those studies missed approximately 87 percent of a data center's physical footprint. BAN's new methodology includes power distribution, backup power, cooling systems, and networking equipment.
The report introduces the concept of AI Waste Contagion, which accounts for the accelerated obsolescence of personal devices and telecommunications infrastructure. This suggests that the environmental cost of AI is not contained within the data center but ripples through the entire hardware ecosystem. The resulting waste is projected to reach 8.6 million to 13.1 million metric tons of retired equipment annually.
Managing this volume of waste presents a systemic failure in recycling and regulation. Less than a quarter of the 68.3 million tons of annual global e-waste is formally recycled, with much of the rest ending up in informal collection sites. The report highlights that the US has not ratified the Basel Convention, allowing hazardous e-waste to be shipped abroad where it may be processed in unsafe conditions.
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