Chapter 09 · Sustainability & AISustainability & AI
AI hardware supply chain
Definition
The chain of extraction, manufacture and logistics behind AI computing: critical minerals, semiconductor fabrication, server assembly and global distribution.
References
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Overview
What it means
AI accelerators concentrate advanced manufacturing in a handful of firms and regions, upstream of which lie mineral supply chains — including those the IEA tracks as critical to clean-energy and digital technologies — with their own environmental and social impacts. Fabrication is energy- and water-intensive, contributing embodied emissions to every model trained or served.
How it is used
Life-cycle assessments of AI increasingly include embodied hardware emissions; procurement teams weigh supplier energy and labour practices; and policy attention to semiconductor and mineral dependencies links AI capacity to industrial strategy.
Why it matters
AI's footprint does not begin at the data-centre door. Hardware supply chains carry concentrated environmental and human-rights risks that belong in any honest sustainability assessment of AI adoption.