Google’s CO2 emissions rose by nearly 50 percent due to artificial intelligence

Google’s goal of reducing its carbon footprint is becoming almost unattainable as the tech giant relies on an increasing number of energy-hungry data centers to power its new artificial intelligence products. The company revealed on Tuesday that its greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 48 percent over the past five years.

The tech giant announced that electricity consumption in data centers and emissions in the supply chain are the primary causes of the increase. It also disclosed in its annual environmental report that its emissions in 2023 rose by 13 percent compared to the previous year, reaching 14.3 million metric tons.

Google, which has significantly invested in artificial intelligence, stated that its ‘extremely ambitious’ goal of achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 ‘will not be easy’. They added that ‘significant uncertainty’ around achieving this goal includes ‘uncertainty about the future impact of artificial intelligence on the environment, which is complex and difficult to predict’.

Incidentally, Google’s carbon dioxide emissions have risen by nearly 50 percent since 2019, the baseline year for Google’s goal to reach net-zero, which requires the company to remove as much carbon dioxide as it emits.

The International Energy Agency estimates that total electricity consumption in data centers could double from 2022 levels to 1000 TWh (terawatt-hours) by 2026, which is approximately the level of electricity demand in Japan. The emergence and development of AI will result in data centers using 4.5 percent of global energy production by 2030, according to calculations by research firm SemiAnalysis.

Data centers play a key role in training and managing models that support AI models such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT-4, which powers the ChatGPT chatbot. Microsoft acknowledged this year that energy consumption related to its data centers jeopardizes its ambitious goal of eliminating all carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, admitted in May that this will not happen quickly due to the AI strategy that has almost become the foundation of their business.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said last week that artificial intelligence will help combat the climate crisis as big tech is ‘seriously ready’ to pay extra for using clean energy sources to ‘say that it uses green energy’.

Large tech companies have become major buyers of renewable energy in an effort to meet their ambitious climate goals.

However, promises to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are becoming contradictory, especially when considering the massive investments in artificial intelligence products that require significant amounts of energy for training and implementation in data centers, along with carbon emissions associated with the production and transport of computer servers and chips used in manufacturing.

Water consumption is another environmental factor in the AI boom, with a study estimating that artificial intelligence could be responsible for consuming up to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water by 2027. For example, this is nearly two-thirds of England’s annual water consumption.