The hidden environmental cost of AI: Seemi at Oman Sustainability Week

On 19 May 2026, Seemi Technology Group CEO Nouman Qaiser spoke at the International Sustainability Resources & Technology Conference (ISRTC), part of Oman Sustainability Week, held in Exhibition Hall 1 at the Oman Convention & Exhibition Centre (OCEC) in Muscat. The conference is organised by Oman Environmental Services Holding Company (be’ah) and programmed by Economist Enterprise.

Nouman joined the panel “AI at scale: driving growth while managing energy, cost and climate risk”, hosted by Robert Willock of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network. He was joined by Kumail Said of OQ Alternative Energy, Sammar Farooqi of SAP and Yasmin Al Douri of the Responsible Technology Hub.

AI’s price tag leaves out the planet

It was clear that the cost at which AI is currently being served does not factor in the environmental impact it is creating.

Nouman Qaiser, CEO, Seemi Technology Group

As AI infrastructure grows, datacentres will use a larger share of the world’s electricity and fresh water. Today, those costs are largely missing from the price of AI services. The panel discussed what happens as they are recognised, including the likelihood that AI will be repriced once environmental costs are factored in.

The tools for sustainable computing

The panel explored practical ways to build computing infrastructure while limiting its environmental impact:

• Efficient chips that deliver more work for every watt.
• Better location planning for datacentres, close to clean power and with lower cooling needs.
• Green energy to power infrastructure.
• Heat reuse, turning datacentre waste heat into a resource.
• Smaller models sized to the task instead of the largest available.
• Smarter AI applications that avoid unnecessary computation.

What it means for Seemi Cloud

At Seemi Technology Group, we are building efficient cloud infrastructure for enterprises. We will ensure that environment and sustainability will not take a back seat.

Nouman Qaiser, CEO, Seemi Technology Group

That commitment shapes how Seemi Cloud is built:

• Green-powered regions. Our Amsterdam and Washington DC regions run on green and renewable power.
• Certified facilities. We choose datacentres with recognised energy- and environmental-management certifications, such as ISO 50001 and ISO 14001.
• Efficient hardware. Our servers use energy-efficient AMD EPYC processors and NVMe storage.
• Right-sized services. Fixed, efficient service tiers and high utilisation mean less idle hardware for every workload.

Explore our datacentres or read how we protect your workloads.

Thank you

Our thanks to Kumail Said, Sammar Farooqi and Yasmin Al Douri for an insightful discussion, to Robert Willock for hosting, and to The Economist for leading the event.