Google’s goal of reducing its climate footprint is in jeopardy as it relies on ever more demanding data centers to power its new artificial intelligence products. The tech giant revealed Tuesday that its greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 48% over the past five years.
Google said data center electricity consumption and supply chain emissions were the primary cause of the increase. It also revealed in its report annual environmental report that its emissions in 2023 had increased by 13% compared to the previous year, reaching 14.3 million metric tons.
The tech company, which has invested substantially in artificial intelligence, said its “extremely ambitious” goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2030 “will not be easy.” It said “significant uncertainty” around meeting the target includes “uncertainty around the future environmental impact of AI, which is complex and difficult to predict.”
Google’s emissions have increased by almost 50% since 2019, the base year for Google’s goal of reaching net zero, which requires the company to remove as much CO2 as it is issued.
The International Energy Agency estimates that total electricity consumption of data centers could Double 2022 levels to 1,000 TWh (terawatt hours) in 2026roughly the level of electricity demand in Japan. AI will make data centers use 4.5% of global energy generation by 2030, according to calculations by research firm SemiAnalysis.
Data centers play a crucial role in training and running the models that underpin AI models such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT-4, which powers the ChatGPT chatbot. Microsoft admitted this year that energy use related to its data centers was jeopardizing its goal of being carbon negative by 2030. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, admitted in May that “the moon has moved” because of the company’s AI strategy.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said last week that AI would help combat the climate crisis because Big Tech is “seriously willing” to pay more to use clean electricity sources to “say they’re using green energy.”
Big tech companies have become major buyers of renewable energy in an attempt to meet its climate goals.
However, commitments to reduce CO2 Emissions are now being challenged by promises to invest heavily in AI products that require considerable amounts of energy for training and deployment in data centers, along with the carbon emissions associated with manufacturing and transporting the computer servers and chips used in that process. Water use is another environmental factor in the rise of AI, with A study It is estimated that AI could account for up to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water use by 2027, almost two-thirds of England’s annual consumption.