Session Description
Artificial intelligence is driving rapid growth in hyperscale data centres, cloud infrastructure, energy networks and global supply chains. While these developments support technological and economic transformation, they also create environmental and social challenges that traditional impact assessment frameworks were not designed to address. Emerging concerns include cumulative energy demand, water consumption, critical mineral extraction, electronic waste, embodied emissions, territorial conflicts and community impacts associated with AI-enabled infrastructure. This Solution Room will bring together practitioners, regulators, researchers and industry representatives to explore how impact assessment can adapt to this evolving landscape. Rather than presenting completed solutions, speakers will introduce key challenges facing the profession, including assessing cumulative impacts from data centre clusters, integrating lifecycle assessment into project approvals, accounting for rebound effects from AI adoption, managing competing demands for water and energy resources, and addressing environmental justice and social licence considerations. Through facilitated small-group discussions, participants will develop practical responses, identify methodological innovations and share lessons from their jurisdictions and disciplines. Rotating discussion cycles will enable each challenge to be examined from multiple perspectives, generating practitioner-led recommendations. The session aims to produce actionable ideas for modernising impact assessment practice and ensuring EIA and SIA frameworks remain effective, adaptive and relevant as digital infrastructure continues to expand.
Session Summary
AI infrastructure is exposing gaps in traditional impact assessment. Through a collaborative Solution Room, participants will explore data centre impacts, water and energy demands, social licence and environmental justice, generating practical solutions to modernise impact assessment practice.
Proposed By
AI and Emerging Technology
Session Chair
Maher Magrabi
Lote Consulting
Australia
Session Co-chair
Hazel Swadling
Lote Consulting
Australia