Google’s carbon emissions have soared by 51% since 2019 as artificial intelligence hampers the tech company’s efforts to go green.
While the corporation has invested in renewable energy and carbon removal technology, it has failed to curb its scope 3 emissions, which are those further down the supply chain, and are in large part influenced by a growth in datacentre capacity required to power artificial intelligence.
The company reported a 27% increase in year-on-year electricity consumption as it struggles to decarbonise as quickly as its energy needs increase.
Datacentres play a crucial role in training and operating the models that underpin AI models such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT-4, which powers the ChatGPT chatbot. The International Energy Agency estimates that datacentres’ total electricity consumption could double from 2022 levels to 1,000TWh (terawatt hours) in 2026, approximately Japan’s level of electricity demand. AI will result in datacentres using 4.5% of global energy generation by 2030, according to calculations by the research firm SemiAnalysis.
Demand from who? Not the users, that’s for sure.
AI is an ivory tower of disaster.
So after years on greenwashing and passing responsibility onto the consumer so DuPont and Exxon Mobile etc can make another unspeakable amount of money the ultra rich are finally just flat out acting like there is zero chance or motivation to mitigate climate change. It’s good to know that the masters are going to full send it bro on all of us. Consumers get AI generated slop and the ultra rich get more firewalls for their shitball fascist worldwide conglomerate.
