AI hardware’s rapid two-to-five year turnover cycle could add up to 5 million metric tons of e-waste globally by 2030

Rest of World reporter Ananya Bhattacharya writes that the rapid adoption of AI could add between 1.2 million and 5 million metric tons of e-waste by 2030, according to a 2024 Nature Computational Science study, as high-performance GPUs and specialized servers become obsolete on two-to-five year cycles. Nearly 70% of e-waste generated in India, the world's third-largest e-waste producer, comes from abroad, with the U.S. as the top origin country, often shipped as “used goods” or “donations” that are actually end-of-life. The Basel Convention prohibits illegal hazardous waste transfers from developed to developing countries, but enforcement is weak, and when China banned most foreign waste imports in 2018, the U.S. simply shifted exports to other Asian and African nations.