Artificial intelligence has rapidly evolved from a promising innovation to a powerful force reshaping every corner of business and daily life. From transforming how companies operate to enhancing the experiences of consumers around the world, AI is no longer a niche technology – it's a global driver of change.

But this transformation brings with it a critical question: How do we continue to scale AI in a responsible way that lowers its impact on our planet? On this Earth Day, it’s a question that demands global attention and bold action.

The Energy Dilemma Behind AI
AI’s rapid rise has triggered an exponential increase in data traffic, putting immense pressure on digital infrastructure — especially data centers. According to the International Energy Agency, demand for AI optimized facilities will quadruple by 2030, with data centers requiring more energy than the country of Japan uses today.

Over the past few years, the world has started to truly grasp the scale of this energy challenge and recognize that there is no easy fix. Meeting AI’s growing demands without pushing global energy systems to the brink will require a fundamental shift across the tech industry, from how we design systems to how we deploy and scale them.

A Global Response to a Global Challenge
Governments, companies and organizations around the world are waking up to this reality. In early 2025, France hosted an international summit focused on the environmental implications of AI. But the movement doesn’t stop there. From Europe to Asia, from North America to emerging markets, the call for sustainable AI is growing louder.

That’s why Ampere® joined the newly formed Coalition for Sustainable AI, a collective of industry leaders committed to building a greener future for artificial intelligence. Together, we are focused on accelerating solutions that deliver on the promise of AI without compromising the planet.

Additionally, as part of our commitment to sustainable and open AI infrastructure, Ampere founded the AI Platform Alliance — a global consortium of technology leaders dedicated to building scalable, open and efficient AI solutions. By collaborating across borders and specialties, the Alliance is accelerating the development of Cloud Native AI platforms that can meet real-world demands without the massive energy footprint often associated with traditional architectures. It’s a new approach to AI infrastructure, grounded in openness, efficiency, and global cooperation.

Redesigning the Foundation: Efficiency at the Core
Working together across the industry is a powerful first step, but lasting change starts with the technology itself. At Ampere, we believe the answer to sustainable AI infrastructure starts at the foundation of computing: the processor.

While the AI industry increasingly turns to GPUs for AI performance, it’s important to recognize that 85% of AI workloads don’t actually require them, and GPUs are often among the most energy-intensive components in the data center.

There is a better way.

Our Ampere® Altra® and AmpereOne® CPUs are designed from the ground up for cloud and AI workloads. They can deliver the performance AI workloads demand while dramatically improving energy efficiency and reducing costs. For example, when running OpenAI’s Whisper model, Ampere CPUs outperform several GPU-based solutions by up to 2.9x, all while consuming significantly less energy per inference.

As AI needs grow and evolve in the future, Ampere continues to push the boundaries of what efficient AI infrastructure can look like. AmpereOne® Aurora, our next generation platform, provides up to 512 cores of AI Compute that is efficient enough to be air cooled. This is the kind of innovation the industry needs to keep pace with AI’s evolution while staying grounded in sustainability.

The Path Forward
AI holds the potential to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges. But it also poses a new one: how do we harness its power without further straining our environment?

The answer lies in making better choices at every level of the stack — from algorithms and models to infrastructure and energy sources. At Ampere, we’re focused on delivering solutions that help the world scale AI sustainably. This starts with processors that are efficient by design, not just optimized after the fact.

As we mark Earth Day 2025, let’s not just celebrate our planet — let’s commit to protecting it as we build the future of technology.

Learn more about Ampere’s commitment to sustainable and efficient AI infrastructure here.