Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I explore how the AI infrastructure boom is reshaping the global economy — and why sustainability has become a defining battleground for the industry’s biggest players.
Highlights
00:09 — The biggest AI firms in the world are currently in the midst of the largest and fastest global infrastructure build out since the Industrial Revolution. With this infrastructure rally, we’re seeing investment in underserved geographies and communities, job creation on a massive scale, and the bare bones that will power the most transformative technological revolution in history.
00:35 — But we’re also seeing something else, that’s the potential for, and I want to reiterate the word potential here, the potential for dramatic environmental consequences if issues like clean water, clean energy, and the extraction of raw materials aren’t adequately addressed and in the most part, and for most leaders, they are.
00:58 — But this isn’t simply a checkbox. It’s an ongoing, evolving initiative that’s become an integral part of strategic planning for AI innovations. In one of the latest examples, Microsoft has agreed a deal with Varaha, an Indian startup that works with smallholders in Asia on carbon removal projects.
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01:23 — Microsoft has committed to acquiring over 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide removal credits over the coming three years through the company. In practice, this will equate to the building of 18 industrial gasification reactors that will burn cotton stalks from smallholder farms in India as biochar.
01:55 — As well as supporting Microsoft’s goals, the project will improve air quality in India’s Maharashtra region by utilizing crop residue that would otherwise be burnt in the open air. These are unprecedented times, and they call for creative thinking. That’s one thing Microsoft and its fellow Cloud Wars leaders have access to in abundance.
02:29 — This is leading to the emergence of new schemes that not only ensure companies are fulfilling their corporate promises and responsibilities, but also have knock-on effects on the communities where these schemes are based.
