Greenpeace calls out Nvidia's 'green illusion'

Set up in 1971, environmental activism organisatiton Greenpeace continues to work - as its name indicates - towards a greener and more peaceful world. In this campaign, amid the vertiginous rise of artificial intelligence (AI), it takes aim at US multinational Nvidia, currently one of the world's most profitable tech companies. Nvidia, says Greenpeace, presents a clean and green image in the global #AI industry, "but behind the scenes, its supply chain still relies heavily on fossil-powered energy in the Asian regions, powering its growth, leaving local households and nearby neighbourhoods to carry the pollution, noise, and safety risks of energy-intensive chip production". Greenpeace has always been targeted as well as well-prepared in its campaigns, disrupting events at high-level corporate/ government level, and staging spectacular at-sea and in-person stunts to raise awareness among the general public. Last month, Greenpeace USA held a mobile protest at Nvidia’s flagship GTC conference in the heart of Silicon Valley, just before the keynote speech of its CEO Jensen Huang. The protest charged the semiconductor giant with powering the 'AI Revolution' with fossil fuels, and demanded that it decarbonise its global supply chain through renewable energy. Greenpeace East Asia says that Nvidia's "supply chain emissions now rival the carbon footprints of some nations, while the company has yet to take meaningful action to address them. A world-class new-generation chip should be produced using wind and solar, not fossil fuels. Nvidia must take action to mitigate the environmental dilemma its business has created.” What do you think of this animated informational campaign, calling out a single company for corporate transgressions which are all too common - neat and necessary for digital audiences, harping too much on a single note, still brilliantly effective?

Keywords: Greenpeace Nvidia, Nvidia green claims, Nvidia Asia supply chains, Jensen Huang, AI revolution, AI greenwashing