On May 28, 2026, we brought together experts from Google, SAP, Siemens and AMBER AI & Data Science Solutions to discuss the opportunities and challenges at the intersection of circular economy and rapidly growing data centre infrastructure.
Driven by AI, cloud computing and digitalisation, data centres are scaling at unprecedented speed. While much of the debate focuses on energy consumption, the discussion highlighted another critical dimension: the materials, equipment and resources required to support this growth.
Building on insights from our discussion paper „The Moment to Act: Circularity in the Era of Data Centre Hypergrowth“, the panel explored where circular economy strategies can create value across the data centre ecosystem and what barriers still need to be addressed.
A special thank you to Michael Ellis (Google), Phichayanin (Yves) Raksuwachon (SAP), René Bauer (Siemens) and Markus Warg (AMBER AI & Data Science Solutions) for sharing their perspectives and experiences. We would also like to thank everyone who joined the discussion and contributed valuable insights.
Below, we summarise the key takeaways from the conversation.
The discussion reinforced the importance of collaboration across the value chain. As next steps, we will continue to deepen our analysis of circular opportunities in data centre infrastructure and support the ecosystems and partnerships needed to bring circular solutions into practice.
