Dear alumni and friends,
Welcome to the winter edition of The Commons: The Earth Issue. If you recall the theme of our redesign debut back in September — water — you may notice a trend: we’re working our way through the elements.
There is, naturally, much to cover when it comes to earth, including both its lowercase (material) and capitalized (planetary) forms. This issue explores E/earth in many ways, including things that grow and things that destroy, resources from critical minerals to dirt and soil, and, perhaps most importantly, the inextricable relationship those of us who inhabit Earth have to each other and to the land.
I was excited when the editorial team pitched me the concept for this issue’s Deep Dive, as it’s one that I have spent many, many hours thinking about in recent months: the environmental impacts of AI; specifically, the enormous data centers that power them. In her early reporting stages, our writer encountered a problem: most faculty she reached out to responded that they didn’t have any published articles on the topic yet — or that they didn’t even have any funding for studies. Part of the wickedness in the problem of how AI is affecting our planet lies in the speed of its development. Even so, work is ongoing by UW—Madison faculty, students, and scientists on provisioning renewable energy for AI, on land use impacts from data center campus developments, on sometimes divisive local land use policies, and on the endless water demands for all these developments. It’s emerging the most important environmental question of the 21st century, and fast.
At the same time as this issue’s development, coincidentally, a unique opportunity arose to put real dollars behind hypothetical questions our smartest minds have been asking about this very problem. I imagine many of you saw headlines last month about UW–Madison’s new research partnership — led by the Nelson Institute — with QTS Data Centers, which is planning a hyperscale campus in the nearby Town of Vienna. This column feels like a good place to share an inside look at how this partnership came to be.
After an initial connection by the UW–Madison Office of Business Engagement, our new Nelson Institute Enterprise — under the leadership of Tracey Holloway — led the charge to develop an innovative, meaningful partnership with QTS to both advance sustainability research and mitigate the environmental impacts of a rapidly evolving data center landscape. Practically, that looks like $1.5 million from QTS to support Nelson-led research into the environmental impacts of large data centers. The investment will fund 14 projects, which were proposed by UW faculty across schools and colleges and selected by QTS.
As you read through this issue’s stories, I invite you to consider and share: what environmental problems are keeping you up at night? What questions haven’t been asked yet? Where do you feel stagnation in the search for solutions? At the Nelson Institute, we’re seeking more and more partnerships with communities, institutional partners, companies, and industries who are willing to invest in environmental solutions. We have the expertise to make a difference, and we’re ready to act. The Nelson Institute has always been the place; now is the time.
On, Wisconsin!
Paul Robbins
Dean, Nelson Institute
