Advocates raise alarm over PFAS pollution from datacenters amid AI boom – PFAS (www.theguardian.com)

Public health and environmental advocates are raising the alarm that the AI-driven buildout of datacenters may be amplifying PFAS (“forever chemical”) pollution in ways that haven’t been studied or regulated. The concern centers on f‑gases—PFAS compounds used as refrigerants in two‑phase cooling systems—and on PFAS used throughout datacenter equipment, cabling and the semiconductor supply chain. The EPA has begun a fast‑track review of new PFAS and related chemicals used by datacenters, but companies are not required to report use or discharges and no systematic air or water testing has been done. Industry says leakage is minimal, but advocacy groups point to rising environmental detections and community health complaints, and to firms like Chemours expanding PFAS production to meet datacenter demand. Technically, PFAS are ~16,000 persistent chemicals tied to cancer, reproductive and immune harms; many f‑gases are also potent, long‑lived greenhouse gases and can oxidize into trifluoroacetic acid (TFA)—treated as a PFAS outside the U.S. and now found increasingly in water, air and blood. Datacenters also drive PFAS use indirectly via semiconductor manufacturing and create large streams of e‑waste that end up in landfills or incinerators, processes that don’t destroy PFAS. The story matters to the AI/ML community because cooling architecture, supply‑chain choices, and equipment turnover directly affect climate, public health and compliance risk—prompting calls for mandatory reporting, monitoring, and tighter regulation.