Data center expansion is crazy! Google's greenhouse gas emissions surged 48% in five years

Google's 2030 'net zero' goal looks increasingly uncertain as use of artificial intelligence surges.

Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have surged 48% over the past five years as a result of an expansion of data centers that underpin its artificial intelligence systems, calling into question its pledge to achieve “net zero” emissions by 2030.

The Silicon Valley company said in its annual environmental report that pollution totaled 14.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023, a 48% increase from the 2019 baseline and 13% higher than last year.

Google noted that the jump highlights the challenge of reducing emissions while investing in building large language models and their related applications and infrastructure, and acknowledged that the "future environmental impact of AI" is "complex and difficult to predict."

Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt said the company remained committed to its 2030 goal but stressed how "extremely ambitious" it was. "We still expect our emissions to continue to rise until we are on track to meet our goal," she added.

Brandt also said Google is working "very hard" to reduce emissions, including by signing clean energy agreements, and mentioned there is a "huge opportunity" for climate solutions enabled by AI.

As tech giants including Google, Amazon and Microsoft plan to invest billions of dollars in AI, climate experts are expressing concerns about the environmental impact of these energy-intensive tools and systems.

In May, Microsoft admitted that its emissions had risen by nearly a third since 2020, largely due to the construction of data centers. However, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also suggested last week that AI would help drive solutions to climate problems.

Meanwhile, constraints on energy production and transmission are already posing challenges for companies seeking to build new technologies. Analysts at Bernstein said in June that AI will “double the growth rate of U.S. electricity demand, with total consumption likely to exceed existing supply within the next two years.”

In a report on Tuesday, Google said energy-related emissions - primarily from electricity consumed by its data centers - rose 37% in 2023 from a year earlier and overall accounted for a quarter of its total greenhouse gas emissions.

Google's supply chain emissions - the largest portion of its total emissions at 75% - also rose 8%. Google said these emissions "will continue to rise" in the short term, partly due to the need to build the infrastructure needed to run AI systems.

Google has pledged to achieve net zero in its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to run on carbon-free energy every hour on every grid it operates by the same date.

However, the company warned that the "termination" of some clean energy projects in 2023 had led to a drop in the amount of renewable energy it could access.

Meanwhile, Google's data center electricity consumption "exceeds" its ability to bring more clean power projects online in the United States and Asia Pacific. In 2023, Google's data center electricity consumption increased by 17%, and is estimated to account for about 7-10% of global data center electricity consumption. In addition, Google's data centers consumed 17% more water in 2023 than the previous year.