"The technological future will be sustainable or it won't be": Pepe Marqués analyses the challenges of AI in 'Orbital Vision 2026'.
Artificial Intelligence has become one of the great drivers of today's economy. This technological revolution, which in recent years has resulted in the construction of huge data centres and a spectacular increase in energy demand, poses one of the great challenges that will set the agenda for the next decade: sustainability.
Pepe Marqués, Dean of the Faculty of Technology, Innovation and Applied Sciences at UDIT, reflects on this balance between innovation and efficiency in Orbital Vision 2026, the reference yearbook on digital transformation published by MCPRO. Entitled "The Age of Applied Intelligence", this year's edition is presented as a practical guide in which experts from the technology sector testify on how innovation is landing today in companies and society.
In his article ("The technological future will be sustainable or it won't be") Pepe Marqués explains how "true innovation is no longer measured by the speed at which we advance, but by the footprint we leave when we do so". In this sense, the analysis of the Dean of the Faculty of Technology is based on two facts that force us to reflect:
- Massive investment: Gartner estimates that global IT spending will have approached $5.5 trillion by 2025, driven by the global adoption of AI.
- Energy stress: Data centre power demand could reach 945 TWh by 2030. In Europe, this consumption already accounts for around 3% of total demand.
In view of this scenario, it warns of the need for sound electricity planning, especially in Spain, which, although it aspires to become a strategic hub for data centres thanks to a mix in which renewable energies stand out (56% in 2024), faces critical challenges in terms of grid capacity. In this sense, in order for this technological revolution to be energetically viable in the long term, it proposes a roadmap based on four fundamental pillars:
- Energy and capacity: Ensuring available and low-emission power.
- Extreme efficiency: Optimise cooling and reuse the heat generated by the systems.
- Transparency: Implement comparable metrics for water consumption and emissions.
- Talent and supply chain: The human factor as a driver of efficiency.
UDIT's participation in Orbital Vision 2026 (together with industry leaders such as AWS, Samsung, HP, Lenovo or Fujitsu) reinforces the university's commitment to training connected to the reality of the technology sector. We invite you to download the complete yearbook for free and discover the detailed analysis of Pepe Marqués Morán and other experts in the sector.
