The United Nations is urging big tech corporations to fuel their data centres with exclusively renewable energy by 2030.

UN secretary-general António Guterres said that Big Tech needs to start taking responsibility for its energy usage, including the water usage required to cool data centres.

Guterres presented concerning reports on Seizing the Moment of Opportunity in partnership with the International Renewable Energy Agency.

“AI can boost efficiency, innovation and resilience in energy systems, but it is also energy hungry,” Guterres said. “This is not sustainable — unless we make it so.”

AI is causing data centre energy and water usage to surge, with AI data centres typically consuming as much energy as 100,000 homes, the UN found. However, the largest centres currently being built will use 20 times this. Data centres are expected to consume as much electricity as Japan by 2030. And not everyone is going to reap these benefits equally.

While certain, more developed nations are advancing in their renewable energy transition, other countries are struggling to catch up. The UN found that clean energy is not replacing fossil fuels at the rate necessary to prevent further climate disaster.

With tumultuous geopolitical tensions, the transition to cleaner energy could become more difficult and costly, even to nations that are currently adopting them.

However, in the long term, the UN predicts that clean power costs will continue to lower, making it a smart investment.

The International Renewable Energy Agency found that over 90% of new renewable projects produce the same electricity for less than the lowest-cost fossil fuel option.

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However, clean power adoption remains an uneven game, with less than one in every five dollars that went towards clean power coming from nations outside of China since the Paris Agreement in 2016.

The emphasis on big tech comes after years of climate concerns regarding the rise of AI and nations’ often enthusiastic reception for the emerging technology. The push for more data centres seems to often not be accompanied by strict environmental regulations or clean energy infrastructure to ensure that AI does not contribute more than it already has to imminent climate disaster.

The UN, however, has continually hit out against big tech in other ways, as UN special rapporteur for human rights reported on the complicity of certain tech companies for the genocide in Gaza.

Tech companies’ reliance on metals and minerals, even when they seek greener solutions, have also lead to the rise of violence, genocide, and child slavery in nations like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been exploited and ravaged by demand for cobalt, coltan, and copper.