AI data-center boom could destroy Big Tech's net-zero plans

Washington: The fast-rising energy demands of Big Tech are undermining the ambitious climate pledges that Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft have all made in recent years, according to a report from the nonprofit NewClimate Institute.

The research says the tech sector faces a "climate strategy crisis" as its data centers demand ever more electricity and water to power growing fields, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing.

"These companies seem to have lost their way with regard to climate strategies," report co-author Thomas Day told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

"The narrative has changed from 'we’re fixed on the target' to 'we're really not sure, but we’ll get there somehow.'"

The picture is further complicated, he said, by ongoing negotiations over how to count and report future emissions.

Big Tech has pledged to fight climate change and says it is striving to be sustainable in all aspects of its business.

Day though points to Microsoft, which in February described its sustainability goals - made in 2020 - as a "moonshot".

It then noted: "We have had to acknowledge that the moon has gotten further away."

The company’s electricity demand has tripled since 2020, the report found, as it invested in giant warehouses that house the computer systems which let users store photos, stream music, talk with AI chatbots and more.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Data hubs

The proliferation of data centers has leapt in recent years. North America housed fewer than 1,500 in 2014; by this year, the United States alone had more than 5,400, according to Statista.

Their average size and power usage has also jumped.

The world's biggest tech firms have nearly all pledged to reach net zero by as soon as 2030, but environmental campaigners are concerned their growing reliance on data centers will bust those ambitions by consuming ever more energy and water.

With AI expected to use about 12% of U.S. energy by the end of the decade, according to consultancy firm McKinsey, this could make it increasingly difficult for companies to transition from planet-heating fossil fuels to clean energy.

Growing gap

Based on publicly available information, the new report outlines massively increased emissions among the companies, alongside apparently minor changes in sustainability plans.

Several of the plans, rather than resulting in net zero, appear to address only half of projected emissions, though NewClimate says hazy accounting makes the gap hard to pin down.

While Meta’s emissions have more than doubled since 2019, and Amazon’s have nearly done so, Amazon’s pledge to be net zero by 2040 "omits large portions of its business and remains unsubstantiated", relying on market-based solutions such as carbon credits to do the work.

And while many of the companies contract out for a significant proportion of their business, using data centers they don’t own, firms such as Meta and Microsoft don’t tally these third-party operations in their overall emissions count.

Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment.

Meta declined to comment on the report, but a spokesperson said the company reports transparently on emissions and energy consumption, and pointed to a 2024 blog on its energy approach.

Amazon said the report “mischaracterizes our data and makes inaccurate assumptions throughout — its own disclaimer even acknowledges NCI cannot guarantee its factual accuracy.

"By contrast, we have a proven, independently audited, seven-year track record of transparently delivering facts that follow global reporting standards.”

It also called AI a transformative technology that is prompting energy demand to rise across industries and homes.

The company listed a host of sustainability initiatives underway at Amazon, be it more efficient delivery routes, lower water use or eliminating plastic from packaging.

"We’re excited about what’s ahead and will continue to share our progress openly," it said in a statement.

NewClimate's report also flagged up a much broader concern, given how these companies undergird the wider digital economy, said Nick Dyer-Witheford, a professor of information and media studies at the University of Western Ontario.

He pointed to the role that Big Tech firms play worldwide "through digitally-targeted advertising, online shopping and influencer culture" which drives carbon-dioxide emissions.

"It is the role of giant digital corporations in sustaining a global regime of ceaseless production and hyper-consumption that needs attention."

AI

In the United States, more than half of the 5,400 data centers operating in March ran on fossil fuels, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a U.S. think tank.

Data center-driven energy demand rose by 12% from 2017 to 2024 and is expected to double again by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

Furthermore, within three years almost half of that demand will be for AI data centers, which will then drive how utilities and grid operators have to respond, said Anurag K. Srivastava, a computer science professor at West Virginia University.

That is because AI use is expected to fluctuate quickly and at scale, depending on the time of day or even as a particular meme or digital trend rocks the Internet, Srivastava said.

"Gas is one (source of energy) that can ramp up and down quickly – you can’t do that with nuclear or others," he said.

"Solar can be done in the same way, but only if it’s located there," he said, noting that large storage batteries could help.

That raises the stakes for local communities, Srivastava said, with a gas-powered system that could handle such peaks and troughs coming at a high financial and environmental cost.

Whatever the ramp-up in power looks like, it will unfold at unprecedented speed, said Srivastava, adding: "The rate of load change is probably one of the fastest we have seen."