Google Admits to 48% Greenhouse Gas Emission Increase in Past 5 Years; Artificial Intelligence Advancements Could Be To Blame

Google has seen a significant rise in greenhouse gas emissions in the past years.

It appears that the race of artificial intelligence has contributed to this surge.

Google Sees 48% Increased Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Last 5 Years

The tech giant has revealed in its latest environmental report that reducing such emissions could be challenging, especially as it goes on to construct more infrastructure.

The company has set a self-target to meet net zero emissions by the decade's end.

However, when the year started, Google also revealed that they would shed over $1 billion worth of investments in the UK to have a novel data center to respond to the growing AI demand. These endeavors could take a toll on their self-targeted efforts.

Data center expansions to support AI developments contributed to the production of 14.3 million tons of CO2 equivalents in 2023. This figure represents a 48% jump from 2019 and a 13% jump since 2022.

The report's authors noted that these mainly resulted from the jump in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions.

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AI Largely To Blame

Artificial intelligence systems necessitate strong computational power levels, which have piled pressure on the data centers of tech giants worldwide.

There have been rising concerns regarding how AI could affect climate change. A study by the International Energy Agency predicted that the electricity data centers could double between 2022 and 2026.

As AI is further integrated into Google's products, reducing greenhouse emissions could be challenging because of the rising energy demands from AI intensities.

Like its other rivals, Google has released various AI projects in the past year. These include Gemini, Overviews, Gemma, AI security tools, and Search image generation.

The tech giant is not the first to share that AI advancements have affected emissions. Microsoft also revealed in May that they saw a 29% increase in emissions from 2020, mainly due to new data center developments.

The sustainability report of Microsoft noted that they face challenges mainly due to how they are a leading cloud supplier that is growing their data centers.

Google's growing emissions may also affect the businesses that use its AI products, as these businesses must meet regulations and environmental goals.

Managing AI Emissions

Nevertheless, the tech giant's environmental report emphasizes several ways that it manages the energy demands of its AI projects.

The company's Tensor Processing Unit, Trillium, is around 67% more energy efficient than the fifth generation.

The company's data centers can also offer up to four times as much computing power with the same electrical power as five years before.

The report notes that Google manages its AI greenhouse gas emissions through model optimization, emissions reduction, and efficient infrastructure.

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