AI, Infrastructures and Sustainability

Why are we rapidly expanding AI infrastructures? What is the social and environmental impact of rapidly expanding AI infrastructures? Who benefits from the AI–hype and who bears the costs? How do metaphors used to describe technology restrict our understanding of these questions?

Join us for the book launch ‘AI, Infrastructures and Sustainability’, an event that explores the material, political, and environmental realities behind today’s AI systems. The book explores critical issues such as environmental degradation, economic concentration, and social justice of AI infrastructure — areas often overlooked in discussions on sustainability. The environmental impacts of data centres, the factories of AI, have been extensively documented. Despite this, the European Commission aims to triple the number of data centres operating within the EU, relying primarily on efficiency‑based measures to control environmental harm. This “sustainability through optimization” approach is flawed and does not account for AI’s supply chain of violence. So why are we deepening conflicts across the globe to build places where machines thrive?

During this event, editors Anne Mollen and Fieke Jansen will introduce the ideas and motivations behind ‘AI, Infrastructure, and Sustainability’, reflecting on what the material nature, political economy, and governance of AI reveal about its broader societal consequences. Contributing authors Anne Mollen, Patrick Brodie, and Gerwin van Schie will further explore the power structures, environmental impact, and knowledge implications of AI infrastructures.

Speakers

Anne Mollen (postdoctoral researcher, Institute of Communication Studies, University of Münster) researches automation, algorithms and AI sustainability, automation and public opinion formation, and automated decision‑making in the workplace.

Patrick Brodie (Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow, School of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin) researches the political ecology of digital infrastructures and is co‑author of From the Bog to the Cloud: Dependency and Eco‑Modernity in Ireland (Bristol UP, 2025).

Gerwin van Schie (Assistant Professor, Media and Culture Department, Utrecht University) investigates plant and soil metaphors in algorithmic culture and infrastructure discourse.

Fieke Jansen (Assistant Professor, Media Studies, University of Amsterdam) is co‑PI of the Critical Infrastructure Lab; her research focuses on how expanding infrastructures shape management, distribution, and depletion of natural resources.