Digitalization currently accounts for 10 percent of global energy consumption, and international researchers expect a further increase of more than 200 percent by 2030.
It is necessary to improve the energy efficiency of the IT and telecommunications industry, reduce its water consumption, and increase the amount of recycling – said János Áder, former president of the republic and chairman of the board of trustees of the Kék Bolygó Climate Protection Foundation, at the Business-IT conference in Budapest on Monday.
János Áder emphasized in his presentation entitled Digitalization in the service of sustainable development: in the National Digitalization Strategy, the government set the goal of spreading technologies and expanding capabilities, based on the strategy, the proportion of households covered by a network capable of gigabit connectivity will reach 95 percent by 2030.
He said: the priority goal of the strategy is that, with targeted government measures, Hungary’s digital development will exceed the European Union average by the middle of the decade, and be among the ten leading EU economies by 2030. Energy is needed for all of this, while compared to population growth, energy consumption has tripled and water consumption has doubled, which leads to increasing environmental pollution, he said.
Digitalization currently accounts for 10 percent of global energy consumption, and international researchers expect a further increase of more than 200 percent by 2030. He added: in 2021, the amount of e-waste on Earth was 57 million tons, which is greater than the total weight of the Great Wall of China, and only 17 percent of this is recycled.
The industry needs to find a way to recycle electronic devices as effectively as possible – he pointed out, noting that 1 ton of mobile phones contains 150 times more gold than 1 ton of rock. He emphasized that the energy efficiency of the industry should be improved, water consumption should be reduced, material consumption should be optimized, the amount of recycling should be increased, and the government should facilitate adaptation. The best and latest Hungarian solutions were presented at the Planet Budapest 2023 sustainability expo this year, he said.
Balázs Vinnai, the president of the IVSZ – Association of Digital Enterprises, said that artificial intelligence (AI) can increase European productivity by 11-37 percent by 2035, according to a report by the European Parliament, and this applies not only to companies operating in technology, but in any other industry valid. He added that the country is still lagging behind in the digitization of SMEs, which represents a breaking point. The popularity of IT training is increasing, compared to the previous year, the number of first-place applicants increased by nearly 31 percent in higher education, the shortage of IT professionals may ease, he said.
The conference will be attended by representatives of the domestic IT and telecommunications sector, representing both business decision-makers and state institutions, with more than 350 experts and 30 speakers. Domestic subsidiaries of global brands (Canon, Samsung Electronics, SICK, Samsonite, HP, ALEF, Asus, Nokia, Lenovo, IBM, Dell, Fujitsu, AWS), the most significant Hungarian players in the industry, software, hardware, infrastructure, the meeting is intended as a large-scale event on the consulting and regulatory side.
