Microsoft’s emissions have increased by 25% in the last year alone, as the tech giant ramps up construction on the data centres needed to fulfil its AI ambitions.
AI requires thousands of specialised, power-hungry chips (GPUs) running continuously in data centres that require huge amounts of energy to run, and thousands of litres of water to keep cool. Even during regular use, asking an AI chatbot a series of 10 to 50 questions can consume the equivalent of 500ml in data centre cooling.
In its latest sustainability report, Microsoft admitted: “Our total emissions (Scopes 1, 2, and 3) increased 25% year over year, driven primarily by the expansion of our data centre infrastructure and pausing our use of non-additional, unbundled renewable energy certificates as we prioritise investments that bring net new power to grids.”
In 2020, Microsoft set some highly ambitious climate pledges. This included being carbon negative by 2030, and removing from the environment all the carbon it has emitted...