Read the full article by Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams)
“As a United Nations expert reiterated a call for a global ban on nonessential uses of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a Swedish nonprofit on Monday released research on how rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and related data centers are helping to drive a surge in PFAS production.
Often called ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t easily break down in human bodies or the environment, PFAS are tied to range of health issues, including various cancers. For months, advocacy groups, journalists, and researchers have stressed that ‘data centers have a PFAS problem.’
That’s illustrated clearly in the new report from the International Chemical Secretariat, or ChemSec, which found that an ongoing expansion by many of the world’s top 10 PFAS producers ‘is driven by three main sources of demand—AI and data center infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, and lithium-ion battery materials.’
Covering the report, The Guardian explained that ‘PFAS are used for a new form of data center cooling touted as more water- and energy-efficient. In ‘two-phase immersion cooling’ systems, servers are immersed in a pool of PFAS with a low boiling point. As the hardware gets hot, the fluid boils, drawing heat away as vapor. That rises to a water-cooled condensing coil at the top of the tank, cools back to a liquid state, and reenters the cycle.'”…