Series: Trust in AI | Sustainability Will your AI repeat the Renaissance’s unfinished dream?
Article | 2026-07-06
The European Renaissance during the 15th and 16th centuries was an era overflowing with creative and revolutionary ideas. Sketchbooks from the time reveal grand visions that still astonish us today. One inventor imagined machines that would allow humans to fly like birds. Another designed unprecedented construction devices to build massive stone cathedrals.
Yet many of these visions were left uncompleted or never progressed beyond beautifully drawn plans.
The reason was simple: there was no power source capable of unleashing their full potential and driving societal transformation. Lightweight, high output, and sustainable energy sources that far surpassed human labor, animal power, or spring mechanisms did not yet exist.
No matter how bold the vision, without sustainable power to support it, these innovations remained unfinished dreams.
This historical reality, proven time and again, now reemerges in a different form, posing a critical question for modern management.
Today’s management challenge: AI’s energy constraints
AI is one of the most powerful innovations of our time. Yet as its performance improves and its use deepens, we encounter the same barrier faced by inventors 500 years ago.
That barrier is energy. Without addressing sustainability, which is the fundamental bottleneck facing AI, organizations cannot sustain a virtuous cycle of growth and transformation. Power consumption by data centers is projected to rise sharply as AI adoption accelerates, and confronting AI’s energy inefficiency has become a shared challenge across nations and regions.
To take flight toward a future of growth and innovation, AI must be equipped with sustainable wings.
Why Trust in AI is sustainable
We confront this challenge head on because it is inseparable from Fujitsu’s own history.
In collaboration with RIKEN, we have long worked to harmonize the conflicting challenges of achieving world-class performance while also increasing energy efficiency in supercomputers such as the K computer and supercomputer Fugaku. By integrating the technologies and expertise gained through these efforts, we developed the next-generation CPU, "FUJITSU-MONAKA*1" aiming to meet the demands of the AI era by maximizing both power efficiency and high performance. An uncompromising commitment to sustainability is deeply embedded in Fujitsu’s DNA.
This legacy forms the foundation of Sustainability as one of the five core elements of Trust in AI. Sustainability means minimizing the power and costs required to run AI, enabling reliable use over the long term.
Fujitsu is developing a next generation CPU, FUJITSU MONAKA, aiming to achieve twice the power efficiency of competing CPUs, with practical deployment targeted for 2027. Through strategic global partnerships which include data center server offerings and AI/HPC computing platforms, Fujitsu is advancing energy efficient, high performance computing at scale.
At the same time, Fujitsu is driving AI lightweighting technologies for large language models (LLMs). Using 1 bit quantization, the company has reduced memory consumption by up to 94%, achieved three times faster performance. This innovation enables large-scale AI models, which previously required multiple high-performance GPUs, to run quickly with fewer computational resources, significantly enhancing the sustainability of AI utilization.
A future shaped by sustainable AI
On the other side of the energy constraint lies a world where AI is embedded throughout society and business, and cycles of innovation accelerate with renewed momentum. In such a world, corporate visions and strategies become far more feasible, bringing the ideal future within reach.
Robotic arms move freely across factory floors. Delivery drones crisscross urban skies. Humanoid robots support caregiving at scale. AI agents autonomously reason and decide, orchestrating a wide range of physical AI systems with ease. In drug discovery, AI agents operating on researchers’ tablets collaborate with quantum applications, instantly proposing promising new compounds. In smart factories, robots coordinate autonomously, reconfiguring production lines to respond swiftly to supply chain disruptions.
Energy constraints are not barriers to innovation. They are the starting point for breaking conventional thinking and creating more resilient, sustainable solutions. AI built for sustainability expands the circle of human AI co creation, strengthening growth across society and business alike.
What does your ideal future look like?
We encourage you to take the first step with us towards Trust in AI.
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*1 FUJITSU-MONAKA
This is based on results obtained from a project subsidized by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
Why is usable AI not enough?
In an era where AI is becoming the foundation of society and business, Uvance Wayfinders is pursuing AI that humans can design—going beyond simply usable AI.
Drawing on the trust built through years of working with social infrastructure, we will unlock the true value of AI and co-create a sustainable future.
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