Abstracts

G. Roussilhe, From silicon shield to carbon lock-in: the environmental footprint of IC manufacturers in Taiwan

Taiwan is the undisputed leader in the manufacture of advanced logic ICs thanks to TSMC, and the next technology nodes should be 2 to 3 nm from 2025. However, between recurring drought and decarbonisation, what does the future hold for Taiwan's electronics industry? Based on environmental data from 2015 to 2022 covering half of the sector, it is possible to determine the trajectories taken by this industry in terms of energy and water consumption, and GHG emissions. This conference will present the results of a study carried out with researchers from UC Louvain and the future climate and environmental consequences of the race for computing power in which the Taiwanese industry is engaged.

D. Maenda Kithoko, For a decolonial digital ecology: a Congolese perspective on digital infrastructures and extractivism

The technologies that form our infrastructures are largely based on extractivist practices deeply rooted in a colonial tradition inherited from the past, as they are intimately linked to wars from which the populations of colonized countries suffer terribly. The case of Congo is particularly painful and revealing.

L. Aubet, Open data for a transparent environmental footprint

Digital is responsible for 4% of the world's of greenhouse gas emissions. It is therefore vital that we learn more about the environmental impact of electrical and electronic equipment. One big challenge is the extreme dependence of environmental impact assessments, such as Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), on rare & poor fundamental data on a handful of components: wafers and derivatives, displays, optical sensors, motherboards. There is thus a pressing need for free fundamental LCA data, reliable, and regularly updated. Our contribution consists of a global review of litterature and industry data on the relations between wafers charcateristics (lithography, localisation, die size, type of wafers, etc.) and the related environemental impacts. The goal is to build a parametric LCA model for these fundamental components.