Sustainability on English AI Terms Dictionary

Space-based data center

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 10:16:04 +0000

Definition

Space-based data centers are proposed computing facilities situated in Earth’s orbit, designed to utilize unique environmental advantages such as abundant solar power and the natural vacuum of space for passive cooling. These centers aim to reduce latency for global networks and offload terrestrial energy demands. While currently conceptual or in early experimental stages, they promise high-performance computing capabilities with minimal thermal management costs. The primary challenges involve radiation hardening, maintenance logistics, and the high cost of launching and sustaining hardware in microgravity environments.

Environmental impact of AI

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 09:57:09 +0000

Definition

This term refers to the significant resource requirements associated with AI technologies, particularly during the training phase of large models. It encompasses electricity usage for data centers, water consumption for cooling systems, and the carbon footprint generated by hardware manufacturing. As AI models grow larger and more complex, their environmental cost increases, prompting the field of Green AI to focus on creating more energy-efficient algorithms and sustainable computing practices to mitigate these negative ecological effects.

Energy

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 09:31:46 +0000

Definition

Energy has two primary meanings in AI. First, it denotes the electrical power required to run hardware, a growing concern for sustainability as models scale. Second, in statistical mechanics-inspired models like Boltzmann Machines or Energy-Based Models (EBMs), energy is a scalar value representing the compatibility between inputs and outputs, where lower energy states correspond to higher probability configurations. Understanding both aspects is vital for sustainable and theoretically sound AI development.