Ciao!
I'm Gianluca Guidi
Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University
PhD, Italian National Doctorate in AI for Social Sciences
Researcher in AI and Data Science for Climate, Health and Social Justice
ORCID
About
I’m a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University working in Francesca Dominici’s research group.
I study how artificial intelligence, data-intensive systems, and digital infrastructures interact with energy systems, water resources, environmental sustainability, and public health.
My work sits at the intersection of AI, energy and water systems, environmental sustainability, and public health, with an emphasis on quantifying impacts, identifying trade-offs, and informing evidence-based policy. I am particularly interested in the energy and water demands of AI systems, data centers, and digital infrastructures, as well as their downstream effects on emissions, resource use, and population health.
I use a combination of machine learning, data science, and statistical modeling, together with large-scale environmental and public health datasets, often working across disciplines and collaborating with researchers in public health, computer science, environmental science, and energy systems.
I earned my PhD under the supervision of Tiziano Squartini and Diego Garlaschelli.Research interests
- Environmental impacts of artificial intelligence and digital technologies
- Energy consumption, emissions, and efficiency of AI systems and data centers
- Water use and water stress associated with digital and computational infrastructures
- AI applications in environmental, energy, and public health research
- Sustainable computing and responsible AI
- Climate, air quality, and population health modeling
- Data-driven approaches to environmental, energy, and water policy evaluation
Publications
A selection of peer-reviewed publications and preprints. For a complete and up-to-date list, see Google Scholar.
Peer-reviewed
- Guidi G, Dominici F, Steinsultz N, Dance G, Henneman L, Richardson H, Castro E, Bargagli-Stoffi FJ, Delaney S. The environmental burden of the United States’ bitcoin mining boom. Nature Communications (2025).
- Guidi G, Mastrandrea R, Facchini A, Squartini T, Kennedy C. Tracing two decades of carbon emissions using a network approach. Scientific Reports 14(1):7251 (2024).
Working papers & preprints
- Guidi G, Dominici F, Butler K, Bell E, Delaney S, Bargagli-Stoffi FJ. Assessing the Carbon Emissions and Energy Consumption of United States Hyperscale Data Centers. Under review at Nature Sustainability (revised manuscript resubmitted) (2026).
- Guidi G, Dominici F, Gilmour J, Butler K, Bell E, Delaney S, Bargagli-Stoffi FJ. Environmental Burden of United States Data Centers in the Artificial Intelligence Era. arXiv (2024).
- Battiloro C*, Guidi G*, Bargagli-Stoffi FJ, Dominici F. Towards a Health-Based Power Grid Optimization in the Artificial Intelligence Era. arXiv (2024), under review at American Journal of Public Health.
- Guidi G, Squartini T. The Global Carbon Trade Network. A complex network analysis of the graphs induced by the Global Carbon emissions trade.
Media & outreach
Selected mentions and outreach related to AI, energy and water use, environmental sustainability, and public health.
- Trump’s tax bill seeks to prevent AI regulations. Experts fear a heavy toll on the planet — The Guardian (June 2025)
- Bitcoin’s Toxic Footprint — Public Health Post (Nov 2025)
- Researchers sound the alarm on controversial AI plan rejected by lawmakers — The Cooldown
- We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard — MIT Technology Review (May 2025)
- How AI Could Help Reduce Climate Change And Air Pollution — Forbes (Jan 2025)
- AI’s emissions are about to skyrocket even further — MIT Technology Review (Dec 2024)
- The Energy Hunger of the AI Boom and its Consequences — Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Dec 2024) (German)
- Le Emissioni dell’Intelligenza Artificiale Pronte a una Crescita Esponenziale — AI4Business (Dec 2024) (Italian)
I’m always interested in engaging with policymakers, journalists, and interdisciplinary audiences on sustainable, resource-aware, and responsible AI.
Software & data
I develop and maintain research code and data pipelines for environmental, energy, and water system analysis. Selected tools and repositories are on GitHub.
People
Current postdoctoral supervisor
PhD supervisors
PhD board / supervising committee
Music
Together with colleagues and friends, we started Project42—a band masquerading as a scientific collective. Inspired by 42—the ultimate random seed and the latitude connecting Boston and Rome—we began as a few Harvard Data Science Initiative scholars jamming together and have grown into a 10+ person band creating music. We’ve performed at multiple events—both academic and not-so-academic—and we’re just getting started.
Check us out at Instagram.
If you’d like to know more, reach out. More minds, more noise.