Google‘s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 were 48% higher than in 2019, according to its latest environmental report.
The tech giant attributes this increase to the growing energy demands of its data centers, which have been amplified by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI).
AI-powered services require significantly more computational power—and therefore electricity—compared to standard online activities, prompting concerns about the technology’s environmental impact.
Google aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2030 but acknowledges that “as we integrate AI more deeply into our products, reducing emissions may pose challenges.”
According to Google’s 2024 Environmental Report, the rise in energy demands is primarily due to the intensified compute requirements of AI.
Data centers, which are vast collections of computer servers, are crucial for AI operations, which necessitate substantial computing resources.
For instance, a generative AI system like ChatGPT may consume approximately 33 times more energy than machines running specific software tasks, as indicated by recent research.
However, Google’s report also highlights significant global disparities in the environmental impact of its data centers.
Most centers in Europe and the Americas primarily use carbon-free energy sources, whereas those in the Middle East, Asia, and Australia rely less on carbon-free energy.
Overall, Google states that about two-thirds of its energy comes from carbon-free sources.
“If you actually go into data centre, it’s really hot and really noisy,” says Tom Jackson, professor of information and knowledge management at Loughborough University.
“People don’t realise everything they’re storing in the cloud is having an impact on their digital carbon footprint,” he says.
Prof Jackson runs the Digital Decarbonisation Design Group, which tries to measure and find solutions to reduce the carbon footprint of data usage.
“Data providers have to work closely with large organisations to help them move away from storing so much of their dark data,” he says.
Dark data is data which has been collected by organisations but which has either been used once or not at all.
However, storing it on chips still takes up large amounts of energy even when it is not being used.
“On average, 65% of the data an organisation stores is dark data,” says Prof Jackson.
He acknowledges Google’s goal of achieving net zero emissions in its data centers by 2030, but he emphasizes that it will be “extremely challenging.”
The growing energy and water consumption associated with AI has sparked numerous warnings, particularly as the sector is projected to continue expanding rapidly.
According to the head of the UK’s National Grid, the combination of AI and quantum computing is expected to result in a six-fold increase in demand over the next decade, as stated in March.
However, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently played down the environmental impact of AI. Speaking in London last week, he suggested that AI would increase electricity demand by only 2% to 6%.
“The real question is whether AI will accelerate more than a 6% reduction in emissions, and the answer is: certainly,” he stated, as reported by the Financial Times.
