Google’s climate footprint reduction targets are at risk due to the rising reliance on energy-intensive data centers to power its new artificial intelligence products. The tech giant disclosed on Tuesday that its greenhouse gas emissions have surged by 48% in the last five years.
Google attributed the increase mainly to electricity consumption in its data centers and emissions from its supply chain. According to the Annual Environmental Report, emissions in 2023 are projected to climb by 13% from the previous year, reaching 14.3 million tonnes.
Despite heavy investments in AI, Google acknowledged the challenges in achieving its “highly ambitious” goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2030, citing “significant uncertainties” around the environmental impacts of AI. The company’s emissions have surged nearly 50% since 2019, the base year for its net-zero ambition.
Data centers are pivotal in training and running the models powering AI platforms like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT-4. However, the energy use related to data centers is jeopardizing Microsoft’s goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030. Microsoft President Brad Smith admitted that the company’s AI strategy had posed challenges.
Source: www.theguardian.com
