3 OCT 2026 — AI tools need large amounts of electricity to run, yet they may also help tackle climate change. A regional survey released on 1 October asked people across Southeast Asia how they weigh the two, and found them divided: 47.9% think AI is good for the environment, 30.2% think it is bad, and 21.9% say they do not know enough to judge.
The question was part of the Southeast Asia Climate Outlook 2026 survey, run by the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. It polled 3,706 people online across all eleven ASEAN members, including Timor-Leste for the first time, between 8 June and 13 July.
How the question was put
Respondents were told that AI tools such as ChatGPT "require large amounts of energy to run, but may also help address climate change," for example by improving energy efficiency or climate modelling, and were asked whether AI is good or bad for the environment overall. According to the report, 20.7% said clearly good, 27.2% somewhat good, 17.2% somewhat bad and 13.0% clearly bad.
Where views differ most
Respondents in Laos (45.7%), Cambodia (33.7%) and Vietnam (33.1%) were the most likely to call AI clearly good for the environment. Brunei was the outlier in the other direction, with 35.4% calling it clearly bad and 1.0% clearly good.
Education made a clear difference. Only 11.4% of master's degree holders and 11.8% of doctoral degree holders called AI clearly good, compared with 38.0% of people with no formal education. Between a third and nearly half of degree holders saw AI as somewhat or clearly bad. Greater familiarity with AI, "and possibly its energy demands," may explain the more critical view, the authors suggest.
Concern without much change
The survey also asked what people had done to reduce their footprint, and added a new option this year: using AI tools less. Some 17.5% said they had. The share was highest in Malaysia and the Philippines, both at 22.0%, and Indonesia at 20.3%. Those are not, the report notes, the countries most worried about AI's environmental impact.
Brunei, the most sceptical country, recorded one of the lowest rates of cutting back, at 14.3%. Concern about AI's footprint "has not yet consistently translated into behavioural changes," the authors conclude.
Climate set against the economy
The AI question sits inside a wider picture. Unemployment and recession (55.3%) edged out climate change and extreme weather (53.6%) as the region's top concern. Climate led in the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia, while economic worries came first in Indonesia, Brunei, Timor-Leste, Thailand and Cambodia.
On the shift to renewable energy, rising prices and the cost of living were the leading worry at 44.6%, down from 52.4% in 2024, while concern about energy shortages rose to 26.1%. Support for a national carbon tax stood at 62.0% against 19.6% opposed, highest in Vietnam at 83.0%.
Why it matters for the region
New AI data-centre capacity is being built across Southeast Asia, from Johor to Batam. This week West Java's governor halted a 640 MW AI campus until its environmental review is complete. The survey suggests the public those projects depend on has not yet settled its view, and that a fifth of it does not yet feel informed enough to have one.
