How AI can help break the world’s fossil fuel addiction

The current AI boom reminds me of the dot-com era, which I watched unfold from venture capital in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Lots of hype. Eye-watering investments. Genuine transformative potential. Most conversations about AI today focus on the obvious value, productivity, and efficiency gains. That’s real, but it’s the shallow end. The deeper potential is something else entirely: ending the linear take-make-waste economy and with it, our reliance on fossil fuels. For half a century, the global economy has run on a simple, destructive model. Extract finite resources from the Earth. Manufacture mostly disposable products. Throw away. Repeat. Petroleum into packaging and apparel. Oil in cars. Critical minerals in the backbone of nearly every modern technology. The list is long, but the pattern is the same. We treat finite resources as if they were infinite, when we all know they are not. COVID and the recent conflict around the Strait of Hormuz have made clear how fragile these supply chains really are, and why our dependence on finite resources concentrated in a handful of geographies is no longer a defensible strategy. The linear model strands value and creates strategic dependence. THE ALTERNATIVE Circularity is not a new concept. It refers to an economic model where materials already in circulation are infinitely regenerated, reducing the need for extraction and putting to work what’s already above ground, much of it currently bound for landfill. Circularity creates resource efficiency, strengthens supply chains and opens up new material sources. Instead of depending on a small number of extraction hubs, reserves diversify dramatically. Countries and industries gain genuine control over the materials they need. And the economics of reusing what’s already in circulation, rather than sending it to landfill, are increasingly hard to argue against. According to a new report from Circle Economy and Deloitte, our lack of circularity is cost