The Canadian government recently launched its Responsible Data Centre Development Principles, enabling the country to set the terms for responsible growth of artificial intelligence computing power and storage.

The promise: “Building more capacity here at home will give Canada greater resilience and choice, while helping Canadian researchers, innovators and businesses build, deploy and scale.”

The principles set five expectations for new data centre projects: to create lasting local benefits, protect Canadians from extra electricity costs, minimize water use and environmental impacts, be transparent about local impacts and bring strategic value to Canada.

Read more: Data centres: Opposing them and developing them are not the only two choices

Meanwhile another part of the story remains out of view: data centres powering AI also need servers, processors, storage devices, networking equipment and cooling systems.

What will become of all this hardware? This question deserves the same scrutiny as the electricity and water consumed throughout the life of these centres.

Before a server is switched on

There is good reason for the focus on energy in the AI infrastructure debate. International Energy Agency projections show that electricity consumption by data centres will increase........

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