Dr. Balamurugan Balusamy, Dean, School of Engineering & IT, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Dubai, has contributed his expert perspective to a recent Gulf News article examining the environmental impact of artificial intelligence.
Published on 17 September 2026, the article, titled “Can ChatGPT prompts really fuel a climate crisis? AI’s growing energy problem,” explores how the rapid growth of artificial intelligence is increasing demand for electricity, data-centre infrastructure and cooling resources. It also examines how the environmental impact of AI depends not only on individual user interactions, but on the large-scale infrastructure required to support billions of queries and increasingly complex AI applications.
In the article, Dr. Balusamy explains that while the energy required for a single text-based interaction may be relatively small, the cumulative demand becomes significant when combined with large-scale model training, AI agents, image and video generation, and other compute-intensive applications. He also highlights the importance of greater transparency around resource consumption so that organisations and users can make more informed decisions about AI adoption.
Dr. Balusamy further discusses the need to ensure that improvements in computing efficiency keep pace with the rapid expansion of AI. He notes that greener computing, more efficient infrastructure and responsible technology development will be critical to managing AI’s environmental footprint as adoption continues to grow.
At the same time, the article highlights AI’s potential to contribute positively to environmental challenges. Dr. Balusamy points to applications in areas such as flood forecasting, air-quality monitoring, environmental data analysis and disaster management, where AI can help process large volumes of information and support faster, more informed decision-making.
The feature brings together perspectives from technology, sustainability and infrastructure experts to examine how the industry can balance the benefits of AI with the need for more sustainable computing practices.