In late May, during Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang’s visit to Taiwan, local activists from the environmental group Greenpeace intercepted him to deliver a five-layer model cake reading: “AI Needs Renewable Energy.” The unexpected stunt was a reference to Huang’s own recent industry remarks, which stated that energy is the foundational layer of AI development.
The activists urged the world’s biggest chip designer to fix the massive environmental damage it is causing in Taiwan, a critical manufacturing base for Nvidia that hosts more than 90 percent of global leading-edge chip manufacturing.
Riding the wave of the global AI frenzy led by generative AI breakthroughs, Nvidia’s AI GPU microchips have made it the world’s most valuable company, and Huang one of the wealthiest people on the planet. For every $100 spent by U.S. AI companies, $60 is spent on Nvidia’s GPUs, Huang estimated.
In the United States and other countries, anger is rising at the prodigious energy and water demands of gargantuan AI data centers. But there is a hidden cost: the toxic supply chain that manufactures advanced semiconductors that fill those data centers. Over the past three years, Nvidia’s supply chain emissions have more than doubled, and the trend is likely to continue as the company’s GPU shipments are forecast to grow at 26 percent per year.
Nvidia outsources most of its manufacturing to Taiwanese semiconductor maker TSMC. As every new generation of microchips uses more energy, water, and toxic chemicals than the last, and as the AI frenzy is driving unprecedented demands for more GPU semiconductors, the island has been left to deal with ballooning energy demands and emissions.
Take Fab 25 as an example. This TSMC manufacturing center, to be built near Taichung city, will require at least 1 GW of power – roughly the same as the entire city of Taichung – and about 100,000 tonnes of water per day, roughly a fifth of the city’s daily water use. Across Taiwan, TSMC operates more than two dozen fabs, and is planning 10 more advanced fabs like Fab 25. As a result, TSMC alone could consume 24 percent of Taiwan’s electricity by 2030, up from over 12 percent last year.
To meet this surge, Taipower, Taiwan’s utility, plans to build 18 gas plants totaling about 18.2 GW, roughly 40 percent of Taiwan’s current generating capacity, largely to meet the demand of the semiconductor industry, led by TSMC. This will further lock Taiwan into fossil-fuel dependency, even as the island already relies on fossil fuels for more than 80 percent of its electricity.
Near Taiwan, South Korea – another major Nvidia manufacturing hub – faces a similar challenge. Samsung and SK Hynix, the two local giants that produce most of Nvidia’s memory chips, are pursuing massive expansions to meet surging chip demand, with little attention to the resulting strain on electricity and emissions. Both companies are key partners in the government’s “Yongin Mega-cluster” plan, a vast complex of semiconductor fabs and AI factories that will become the world’s largest industrial complex.
Shockingly, the plan calls for power from six massive LNG units (3 GW) by 2030 rather than renewables. Yet Yongin will ultimately demand about 15 GW of electricity – roughly one-sixth of South Korea’s total electricity demand – and will consume about half the water used by Seoul and its 10 million people.
Like Taiwan, South Korea’s energy system is still mostly powered by planet-warming gas. Both countries are critically dependent on the Persian Gulf for their oil and gas, and are now facing their worst-ever energy crisis. Taiwan says it has secured supplies through the end of the year, but uncertainty looms afterward. Although South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said the country must “move very quickly toward renewable energy,” Greenpeace’s energy team recently warned that, instead of accelerating renewables, South Korea may revert to coal under the banner of “energy security” – especially as surging demand from industries like electronics intensifies.
Now, Nvidia and the global AI frenzy are locking Taiwan and South Korea deeper into fossil fuel dependency and chronic energy insecurity. The AI boom is fast becoming a carbon trap, and it is the people in East Asia who will be unable to escape worsening pollution and runaway carbon emissions.
Worse still, while Nvidia quietly drives this environmental destruction in East Asia, it is actively trying to blindfold its own investors. Ahead of its June 24 annual meeting, shareholders proposed that Nvidia report on the lifecycle carbon emissions of its products after sale. The company recommended shareholders vote against the proposal, claiming it is “too prescriptive.”
Nvidia likes to brand itself as a climate champion, but its business model relies on a form of climate colonialism – outsourcing the dirtiest parts of its supply chain to East Asia while actively suppressing transparency.
If Jensen Huang truly wants to lead the future, Nvidia must come clean. It must disclose its full lifecycle emissions and legally commit, alongside its Asian manufacturing partners, to producing 100 percent carbon-free AI chips by 2030. Until then, its AI supremacy will remain a dirty empire built on East Asian coal and gas.
