“Abundance flows from reciprocity, not extraction.”

Across the globe, new data centers are being built to power machine learning, cloud services and the digital economy we’ve come to call AI. These facilities consume massive amounts of electricity and water, and their environmental impact is quickly becoming a concern for communities and policymakers.

As demand for digital infrastructure grows, so does the urgency of ensuring the energy transition does not replicate old patterns of extraction, inequity and environmental sacrifice.

As the behemoth of AI and its affiliated infrastructure rockets forward, it begs the question: How do we balance the promise of a digital future with the costs of unending extraction on the environment and well-being — or is such a balance even possible?

A moment to reflect

As we step back to consider this future on Indigenous Peoples Day in the United States, we remember that Indigenous communities are often the first to experience the effects of extraction and environmental change. They have long been at the forefront of climate action while also bearing the heaviest burdens of its impacts.

As a Native Hawaiian working in the energy and sustainability space, I see this in real time. On days like these, I like to query my own AI — Ancestral Intelligence — as a guide for the urgent work of building sustainable systems of practice, stewardship and futures.

Lessons in stewardship from the Kumulipo

As Indigenous peoples, our worldview is rooted in our histories. For me, as a Native Hawaiian, that foundation comes from our creation story, the Kumulipo. This creation chant, more than 2,000 lines long, tells the story of the beginning of the world: light and darkness, sea and land, plants and animals, and finally humans.

In its verses lies the foundational model of Ancestral Intelligence — a guide to the systems that sustain our world. In this system, humanity comes last in the order of creation. The sea, land, plants and animals all precede us, and our place is to steward the ecosystems around us.

“We humans are not in control of the system — we are part of it.”

One of our Indigenous teachings revolves around the history of Hāloanakalaukapalili. Born as a stillborn child of two of our gods, Hāloanakalaukapalili was buried. From his body grew the first kalo (taro) plant. A second being was born soon after — humans.

From that moment forward, a relationship was defined: kalo, as the elder sibling, provided sustenance, and humans, the younger sibling, carried the responsibility to care for kalo and the land that nourishes it.

This reciprocal bond is not a metaphor; it is a lived framework of sustainability and stewardship. In the Hawaiian worldview, abundance flows from reciprocity, not extraction. Healthy streams nourish taro patches, healthy taro patches feed families, and healthy families, in turn, are accountable for caring for the land.

This cycle of responsibility is another framework of Ancestral Intelligence.

Aha Moku: Systems thinking before systems thinking

For Native Hawaiians, these teachings were embedded in societal organization. Our resource management systems divided land from mountain to sea into self-sustaining units called ahupuaʻa, which were then included in the ʻaha moku, or island system. These systems allowed for self-sustaining and coordinated resource planning at scale.

This model of scaled stewardship and collective governance mirrors the challenges we face in energy today. Modern energy planning requires us to think beyond single technologies or communities.

We must consider how to integrate new technologies like solar, wind and battery storage across communities, while leveraging efficiency efforts and grid demand. We operate with the understanding that what happens in one neighborhood, one circuit or one region reverberates throughout the whole system.

Why Ancestral Intelligence matters in 2025

The urgency of the energy transition is clear. As climate change accelerates, the environmental and economic effects worsen. Frontline communities are the first to shoulder those effects.

At the same time, data centers and AI-driven industries demand more electricity than ever before. Left unchecked, these pressures threaten to replicate patterns of extraction and imbalance that Indigenous peoples have fought against for generations.

At AESP, we recognize that community, access, representation and empowerment (CARE) are essential to advancing energy efficiency and clean energy, especially for frontline and indigenous communities. These values are the very principles we seek to embed in modern sustainability and the energy transition today

They align with our Hawaiian worldview that is always future-facing: Every decision we make today shapes the world we leave to the generations that follow.