The data centre question: how does AI impact climate goals?

As AI and cloud computing scale at pace, the data centres powering them are expanding just as rapidly, reshaping electricity markets, infrastructure investment and sustainability priorities.

For leaders, these shifts are no longer technical questions but strategic ones.

Recent headlines have highlighted rising electricity costs, delayed projects and increasing scrutiny of the environmental footprint of digital infrastructure. At the same time, technology companies argue that data centres drive innovation, jobs and long-term economic growth, creating complex trade-offs for organisations navigating digital transformation.

This Executive Education panel brings together expertise in AI, energy economics and sustainability policy to examine the leadership implications of this transition.

• How significant is the impact of data centres on energy systems and emissions?
• What trade-offs and synergies are emerging between digital expansion and climate goals?
• What governance, market and technological actions are needed?

Join us for a thought-provoking one-hour live panel exploring the intersection of AI, the economy and the future of sustainable growth.

Meet your speakers and chair

Jonathan Cardoso-Silva is an assistant professor in the LSE Data Science Institute where he teaches modern best practices for the collection, storage and manipulation of data for analytics and AI. Jon co-leads the GENIAL project, a study that looks into how the use of AI by undergraduate students impact, or interfere, with their learning experience at university.

Marion Dumas is Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute. Her research interests encompass green innovation, the institutional processes underpinning decarbonisation, and the interaction between reducing inequality and fighting climate change. Marion is an environmental economist and political economist, also trained as an environmental scientist, broadly interested in how to reform both economic policies and institutions to contend with planetary boundaries.

Sini Matikainen is Director of Economic and Fiscal Policy at the LSE Centre for Economic Transition Expertise (CETEx). Sini joined the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment as a Distinguished Policy Fellow in June 2024. She also previously worked at the Grantham Research Institute from June 2016 until September 2018 as a Policy Analyst.

More about this event

This event is part of the LSE Festival: How to save the planet running from Monday 15 to Saturday 20 June 2026. This year's Festival explores how existential threats including the climate crisis, conflict and AI are affecting all parts of the world, transforming the way and where we live, and how our societies function. With a series of events asking what can we be doing to save the Earth, its people and environment? Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 18 May.

LSE Executive Education provides high quality courses in business and management, economics, finance and public policy designed to accelerate your career. As part of the London School of Economics, a world-class university and renowned for its excellence in leading research in the social sciences, our courses expertly connect the theory to the real-world global business context. Learn with world-class academics and practitioners, extend your professional network and gain a truly international perspective, right in the heart of London.

Hashtag for this event: #LSEFestival

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