Pakistan’s prime minister recently announced an investment of $1 billion in Artificial Intelligence by 2030. The aim is to build a national AI ecosystem where Pakistani youth can learn and equip themselves with technological skills. This undoubtedly seems like an ambitious plan, and also a needed one.

With global AI advancement accelerating at an unprecedented pace, it is certainly the need of the hour to learn and adapt. But AI is not just an innovation. It is not merely software, code, or algorithms. It is infrastructure. And infrastructure is physical, with a certain cost attached to it.

When we talk about digital transformation, we often forget that it rests on very real material foundations: data centres, electricity grids, cooling systems, rare earth minerals, and global supply chains. AI systems are dependent on vast quantities of data, which require large data centres. These data centres consume enormous amounts of electricity.

They require continuous cooling. They depend on rare earth minerals extracted through environmentally damaging mining processes. They generate electronic waste, often containing hazardous substances like lead and mercury. The digital revolution is not immaterial. It is extractive.

The UNEP has rightly highlighted that AI can play a transformative role in environmental monitoring, biodiversity protection, pollution tracking, and disaster prediction.........

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