Indirect carbon emissions from the operations of four of the leading AI-focused tech companies—Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta—rose on average by 150% from 2020 to 2023, as they had to use more power for energy-demanding data centers, a United Nations report said on Thursday.
The use of artificial intelligence is driving up global indirect emissions because of the vast amounts of energy required to power data centers, the report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the U.N. agency for digital technologies, said.
Indirect emissions include those generated by purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling consumed by a company.
Amazon’s operational carbon emissions grew the most, at 182% in 2023, compared with three years before, followed by Microsoft at 155%, Meta at 145%, and Alphabet at 138%, according to the report.
The ITU tracked the greenhouse gas emissions of 200 leading digital companies between 2020 and 2023.
Meta, which owns Facebook and WhatsApp, pointed Reuters to its sustainability report that said it is working to reduce the amount of emissions, energy, and water used to power its data centers.
The other companies did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
As investment in AI increases, carbon emissions from the top-emitting AI systems are predicted to reach up to 102.6 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, the report stated.
The data centers that are needed for AI development could also put pressure on existing energy infrastructure.
“The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is driving a sharp rise in global electricity demand, with electricity use by data centers increasing four times faster than the overall rise in electricity consumption,” the report found.
It also highlighted that although a growing number of digital companies had set emissions targets, those ambitions had not yet fully translated into actual reductions of emissions.
—By Olivia Le Poidevin, Reuters
Melden Sie sich an, um einen Kommentar hinzuzufügen
Andere Beiträge in dieser Gruppe
The Bible is now on TikTok, vlog-style.
Picture David—yes, that David, of Goliath fame—with an iPhone and influencer energy. “Asked the guy to film it, but guess what? The camera froze,”
“In three years,” a fellow tech executive recently told me with serene confidence, “Everyone will be able to make a full-length movie in AI, totally personalized for them, by just typing up a few
In 1999, I got to work on a literally once-in-a-lifetime project. As the 20th century was wrapping up, the magazine where I worked declared the personal computer the most important invention of th
Right-wing conspiracy theorists once believed the government was using drones to surveil its own citizens. President Donald Trump actually did.
During ongoing demonstrations in Los Angel
In summer 2020, former Evernote CEO Phil Libin launched Mmhmm, a soft
From family photos in the cloud to email archives and social media accounts, the digital lives of Americans are extensive and growing.
According to recent studies by the password managem
A dozen years after its launch, fintech company Chime rang the bell this morning at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square to ce
