BAN Warns AI Data Centers Will Create Massive E-Waste

The Basel Action Network (BAN) has released a report warning that electronic waste from the AI boom has been severely underestimated. According to the nonprofit, the retirement of AI-related equipment between 2025 and 2050 will generate between 395 million and 617 million metric tons of e-waste. This equates to 8.6 million to 13.1 million metric tons of discarded hardware annually. By 2050, this waste could fill 23 million 40-foot shipping containers, enough to circle the globe six times.

Previous studies underestimated the crisis by focusing only on servers and GPUs, missing about 87 percent of a data center's electro-mechanical infrastructure. BAN's broader methodology accounts for power supply, cooling systems, backup power, and networking equipment. It also factors in "AI Waste Contagion," which includes telecommunications infrastructure and personal devices made obsolete by AI advancements. BAN estimates that data centers generate 70,000 metric tons of e-waste per gigawatt of capacity. With McKinsey projecting total data center capacity to reach 219 gigawatts by 2030, the scale of the problem is poised to explode.

Currently, the world produces 68.3 million tons of e-waste annually, but less than a quarter is formally recycled. BAN predicts global e-waste will triple to 211 million metric tons per year by 2050, with AI responsible for 15 to 20 percent of that total. This dwarfs earlier forecasts. A 2024 study predicted AI e-waste would reach 1.2 million to 5 million tons by 2030, while a February study estimated AI servers would create 131,000 to 225,000 tons annually by the decade's end.

For AI practitioners and data center operators, these findings signal an urgent need to design for sustainability. Because the United States has not ratified the Basel Convention, much of this equipment is exported to informal, toxic recycling operations abroad. To avoid a severe environmental footprint, developers and enterprise buyers must prioritize hardware longevity, demand recyclable infrastructure, and establish transparent, certified recycling pipelines for retired assets.