Does the Rabbi think there is no value at all in having children through donation? And that it is only an emotional / selfish need of the parents?

Let me define my intention more clearly..
Doesn’t our generation, when there is a possibility of bringing children even to an infertile couple through donation,
and in fact even with IVF there is no fulfillment of the commandment of procreation,
perhaps there is value in bringing children through donation.. Is that also part of sustaining the world?

There may be some value in it, but it is negligible compared to the problems. In general, nowadays bringing children into the world is of doubtful value, aside from the commandment (because of population explosion). Therefore, in my humble opinion, the commandment of “He did not create it to be a waste; He formed it to be inhabited” is nowadays no longer applicable. There is no concern that the world will become waste if we do not fulfill “He formed it to be inhabited.” And when you are exempt from the commandment, there is certainly no reason to enter into problems for the sake of this.

The value in bringing children is not only to avoid the concern of waste and desolation, but also to increase the image—that is, to increase the presence of the image of God in the world. Beyond that, there is also an act of kindness toward the child himself, since although it was said that it would have been better for a person not to have been created, still it is apparently good for him that he was created (“good” is different from “better off”), because presumably if the Holy One, blessed be He, created man, He did so, among other reasons, for man’s own good.
Beyond that, there is the point that presumably this child will be raised for Torah and commandments, and here there is certainly value, since the number of Jews in the world who keep the commandments is not all that large. In addition, a person raised with Torah and commandments is generally a person who contributes to society above average. In practice, almost every person born in Western society today creates a positive effect on the world. His expected contribution to GDP will generate substantial tax revenue that will generally be directed to positive social purposes such as education, health, science, etc.
Perhaps one can also add here the issue of settling the Land of Israel, and strengthening the Jewish people’s hold on its land.

As far as I remember, in Jewish law the issue is “He formed it to be inhabited.” There is no obligation of acts of kindness toward a being that does not yet exist in the world, and there is also no obligation to bring about the commandments that he will perform.
On the question of whether a child in Western society contributes positively to the world, I am really not sure.
As for strengthening the people and our hold on the land, here I am very torn. That is an argument that comes up often, but on the other hand every people and every group is convinced that they are unique, and therefore it is important for them to multiply. Only the others are supposed to refrain. According to the categorical imperative, moral rules should be universal, and therefore I am not inclined to accept that argument. It would of course be different if we had a real problem of holding the land (in the sense of “the corpse is lying before us,” i.e. an immediate concrete emergency). But as a general statement, it does not seem right to me.

Even if the Chinese or the Indians think they are unique, I do not think they believe it is important for them to multiply. Among other things, because they feel secure enough in terms of demographic threats. On the contrary, the Chinese even restricted their own birthrate despite thinking they are special. The Jewish people are in a situation of struggle over their right to their land; that is a relatively unique situation that most peoples are not in. Most peoples dwell securely in their lands, with nothing to terrify them. Moreover, the enemies of the Jewish people outnumber them dozens of times over (taking the entire Arab world into account).
Beyond that, increasing the image of God in the world is a consideration that applies to all nations.
In addition, from an economic point of view, the more people there are in the world, the more efficient humanity will be. This is because the “overhead costs” will be spread across more people. Perhaps there should be a qualification regarding Third World countries, where high birthrates can become a burden on the global economy, but in developed countries, I think higher birthrates are overall an economic blessing. Not for nothing is one of the indicators of the economic resilience and stability of a developed country “healthy” birthrates (though not excessive ones). Once the birthrate of a given country falls below 2.1, the aging population becomes too large relative to the productive population, and then they become a burden that is already hard to carry. The plummeting birthrates in the Western world have recently led various governments to create pro-natalist policies.

My assessment is that a person in the First World is much more of a burden than a person in the Third World (who is close to dying of hunger and does not harm the climate and conditions here in any way, and does not produce trash and pollution). What is lacking today is not money but the will to give it and to help. Contribution to the world’s money supply is not really important here. I do not think the consideration is financial (and therefore overhead costs are also not important). What is lacking (or is going to be lacking) is space and natural resources, not money. Money is not a resource but a form society developed in order to distribute resources within itself.
Appropriate birthrates are indeed still necessary today. But that is so that the young can support the older people in society (the inverted age pyramid from which China suffers, and for which they changed their policy, as you yourself mentioned). I was not talking about falling below that, but about taking it into account. From the standpoint of Jewish law, there is no consideration of this at all, and the more one increases, the more praiseworthy he is.
As I said, if we truly reach a situation where population growth is necessary for us for security reasons, etc., then I agree too. What I argued is that general statements are not enough.

Aside from the commandment of “He formed it to be inhabited,” there are several other things:
Maimonides, Laws of Marriage, chapter 15:
“Even though a person has fulfilled the commandment of procreation, he is commanded by the Sages not to desist from being fruitful and multiplying as long as he has the strength, for whoever adds one soul to Israel is as though he built an entire world.”

According to Maimonides, the reason one should continue in procreation beyond the minimum is because of the fundamental value of creating a human being. Just as there is value in refraining from murder and that is a postulate, one can view the value of creating a human being as a postulate as well (postulate = does not require further justification). The Sages also compared bloodshed to refraining from procreation, and this is likewise brought in the Shulchan Arukh, Even HaEzer, Laws of Procreation, section 1: “Every man is obligated to marry a woman in order to be fruitful and multiply. And anyone who does not engage in procreation is considered as though he sheds blood, diminishes the Divine image, and causes the Divine Presence to depart from Israel.”

In addition, I saw a reference by Rashi on this issue that brings proof from the verse “In the evening do not let your hand rest”:
Rashi on tractate Beitzah 37a:
“Who has a wife and children” — two males according to Beit Shammai, or a male and a female according to Beit Hillel, and beyond that he is no longer so strictly commanded, as we say in Yevamot 61b. Nevertheless, there is still some commandment involved, as it says: “In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not let your hand rest” (Ecclesiastes 11).

And similarly in Yevamot 62b:
Rabbi Yehoshua says: “If a man married a woman in his youth, he should marry a woman in his old age; if he had children in his youth, he should have children in his old age, as it is said: ‘In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not let your hand rest, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.’”
Rashi, s.v. “which will prosper” — which offspring will be worthy, God-fearing, and enduring.

That is to say, beyond the issue of settling the world and preventing it from returning to waste, there is also value in bringing worthy and God-fearing people into the world. And that is certainly more likely to come from people who observe Torah and commandments and educate toward Torah and fear of Heaven.

Indeed. But these are all reasons given by medieval authorities (Rishonim), or hints in the sense of reasons for the verse. The law itself is “He formed it to be inhabited.” To the best of my judgment, these reasons do not stand up against the considerations I presented.