Topic: Navigating AI-driven Environmental Footprints within Planetary Boundaries

The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, ranging from large-scale data centers to distributed edge computing has triggered an unprecedented surge in energy demands and environmental footprints. This renders the environmental footprint of the digital economy a critical yet underexplored frontier within climate science. While AI delivers transformative tools for climate modeling and optimization, its material and operational emissions remain largely opaque, scattered across global supply chains, energy grids, and hardware lifecycles. Tracking these footprints within planetary boundaries is not merely an accounting exercise but rather a prerequisite for aligning digital expansion with safe operating space. By spatially attributing AI-related resource consumption and environmental emissions, this special issue seeks to bridge the divide between AI innovation and ecological limits, which offers actionable pathways toward sustainable computing, low-carbon infrastructure sitting, and enhanced policy coherence in the AI era.

The related topics of this special issue include but are not limited to:

●  AI-driven Life-Cycle GHG Accounting;

●  GeospatialMapping of Data Center Emissions;

●  AI Driven Energy-Carbon-Water Trade-offs;

●  Renewable Energy Access for AI Hubs;

●  Carbon Footprints in AI relatedSupply Chains;

●  The Rebound Effect of AI Efficiency Gains;

●  AI-facilitated Greenhouse EmissionCuts;

●  AI empowered Innovations and Boundaries.