When Josh Parker joined Nvidia in 2023, there was just one other person on a team responsible for leading the sustainability strategy and public policy initiatives. It didn’t deter him from his belief that they could make a difference. “Nvidia is at the center of the AI revolution,” he says. “This is a really good opportunity for us to have a positive impact.” Three years later, his team has increased fourfold and taken on the challenge of communicating AI’s potential benefits, from automated energy management to image-recognition recycling, to a public that remains skeptical of the technology.
The AI industry at large has faced questions about its environmental impact. While Nvidia has set a 2030 target to significantly reduce its emissions, it has yet to release data on the full climate footprint from the use of its products, prompting shareholder calls for greater transparency. In June, Nvidia’s annual sustainability report revealed that indirect greenhouse gas emissions from across its value chain, known as Scope 3, nearly tripled over two years.
In a moment when data centers are facing scrutiny for their water and energy usage, Parker says Nvidia is making strides to make newer data centers more energy-efficient. The company’s latest Rubin generation of AI architecture is the first to achieve 100% liquid cooling, a breakthrough that Nvidia says will help dramatically reduce cooling energy consumption. The company is also piloting technologies that allow data centers to adjust their power usage during periods of peak demand to help ensure efficiency.
Yet more needs to be done to inform the public of potential benefits, Parker says. “I think we need to do a better job of communicating what the actual impacts are, what modern AI looks like, and how sustainable it is.”