Google’s emissions have risen by 48 per cent in the last five years with the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) into many of its main products, the tech giant’s latest environmental report reveals.
In 2021, Google set a goal of achieving “net zero emissions” across all its operations by 2030, but instead last year its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reached 14.3 million tonnes, an increase of 13% on the previous year and 48% compared to 2019, Google explains in a report released on Tuesday.
The company justified this increase with the energy consumption demanded, in particular, by data processing centres, large buildings that require high-voltage transmission lines, which house new applications that power new generative AI tools, such as Chat GPT.
Generative AI, which uses user data and generates new content such as text, images or songs, consumes a lot of resources and, as this technology grows, more data storage centres are needed, which leads to “an increase in energy needs”, according to a Bloomberg study.
“As we integrate more AI into our products, reducing emissions can be a challenge,” Google also says in the report.
In a study on sustainability prepared by Microsoft and published in May this year, the technology company, which also has the goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030, claims, however, that its emissions have increased by 29 per cent since 2020, also as a result of its investments in generative AI.
