Professor Dr Róbert Szuchy gives lecture at Queen Mary on The Double Injustice of AI
On 19 February 2026, Professor Dr Róbert Szuchy, Vice-Rector for Education and Full Professor at Károli Gáspár University (Hungary, Budapest), delivered an invited lecture at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS) of Queen Mary University of London.
The academic exchange was enriched by the participation of distinguished scholars in energy and climate law.
Held at CCLS, the lecture titled “The Double Injustice of AI” explored the intersection of artificial intelligence, energy law and social justice.
The presentation addressed an increasingly unavoidable question: how should we assess artificial intelligence once its full energy demand, grid impact and social consequences are taken into account?
- The rapidly growing electricity demand of AI-driven data centres,
- Increasing pressure on electricity grids and regional price effects,
- Persistent energy poverty across Europe,
- Regressive impacts on vulnerable households,
- The carbon footprint and hardware lifecycle externalities of AI systems.
When frontier AI systems require GWh-scale training energy — combined with continuous inference and cooling demand — regulatory, distributive and ethical considerations become unavoidable. The lecture examined key policy questions, including the financing of grid upgrades, the additionality of renewable energy claims, consumer protection in the context of innovation, and the measurement of the social return on AI.