Data Center Emissions Far Outpace Tech Company Claims

Data centers owned by major tech companies emit significantly more greenhouse gases than the sector admits, reports Isabel O’Brien in The Guardian. “According to a Guardian analysis, from 2020 to 2022 the real emissions from the ‘in-house’ or company-owned data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple are likely about 662% – or 7.62 times – higher than officially reported.”

As early as 2022, before the explosion of AI tools like ChatGPT, data centers accounted for 1 percent to 1.5 percent of global electricity consumption. “According to Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search, and data center power demand will grow 160% by 2030.” 

While some companies say they are ‘carbon neutral,’ experts call this a ‘creative accounting’ strategy. “Amazon – despite all the PR and propaganda that you’re seeing about their solar farms, about their electric vans – is expanding its fossil fuel use, whether it’s in data centers or whether it’s in diesel trucks,” said a representative of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.

O’Brien warns, “Even though big tech hides these emissions, they are due to keep rising. Data centers’ electricity demand is projected to double by 2030 due to the additional load that artificial intelligence poses, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.”