Topic: 2025 – Artificial Intelligence and Resource Consumption
Country: India
Delegate Name: Reni Bejko
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence have skyrocketed in recent years and according to the International Trade Administration (ITA) has gone up by 40% over the last 5 years in India, but with this rapid growth comes a side effect: Rapid resource consumption. For India, with its population of 1.4 billion and the nation developing rapidly, with growing digital infrastructure and a higher demand in energy than ever before, the question is no longer whether to utilize AI or not, but how to implement it sustainably. India recognizes that AI is a tool for economic growth, healthcare, and job creations. However, India is equally aware that the unchecked energy usage, water consumption, and mineral extraction used to sustain these systems is causing harm to the environment as well as threatening India’s development that it is currently trying to strive for. India believes that AI developments should prioritize efficiency, sustainability, and responsible innovation so new advancements in technology do not harm future generations to come.
As these AI models grow larger and more complex, so do the energy demand on power grids, supply chains, and data center infrastructure, especially in developing nations such as India. Therefore, the committee should take the following questions into consideration:
How can nations implement AI without creating unsustainable energy production? What regulations are needed to prevent environmental damage due to AI, including electronic waste and excessive water usage in chip fabrication and data-center cooling? And how can developing nations adopt more complex AI systems without worsening local environmental damage or resource inequity?
India proposes the expansion of green, sustainable data center infrastructure by utilizing solar-powered energy for the data center, energy efficient cooling systems that waste the least amount of energy as possible, and the use of low-water or sustainable water cooling such as the use of Coolant Distribution Units (CDU), coolant systems that recycle water/air to repeatedly cool data centers while saving hundreds of millions of gallons a year.
In India, we have already seen a success of green data centers, as The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and the National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) have recently come to an agreement on implement these sustainable systems in September of 2025, with projections saying that the continued usage of these sustainable systems would lead to over an 88% decrease in emissions/waste from data centers, and to reduce carbon emissions by over 50% from 2022 levels.
India firmly believes that the future of AI must not come at the expense of environmental stability or economic development. AI has the power to transform industries such as healthcare, industrial work, and electronic work. However, this is only possible if its growth is sustained with sustainable practices, such as providing energy efficient systems and data centers. India believes that all nations could come to an agreement that these AI systems need sustainability so as to not harm the future generations that will come to be. India is looking forward to working with nations in the UNEP committee to discuss solutions to this problem.
Sources/Works Cited:
TERI and NSFERI Energy Agreement
India Uses CDUS in data centers
ITA – India and Artificial Intelligence
