Artificial intelligence requires even more electricity consumption. The electricity demand of data centers and artificial intelligence may double by 2026. The increase in electricity consumption also increases emissions.
Technology giant Google’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by almost 50 percent from 2019 to 2023, it turns out From the environmental report published by Google.
According to the report, the main reason for the rapid increase in emissions is the increase in the use of artificial intelligence.
Last year, Google’s total emissions were 14.3 million carbon dioxide equivalent tons, i.e. higher than, for example, Latvia’s annual emissions.
Carbon dioxide equivalent means the combined climate-warming effect of different greenhouse gases.
The climate goal is slipping away
Using artificial intelligence consumes a lot of electricity: training and using artificial intelligence requires a huge amount of servers running in power-consuming data centers. Artificial intelligence consumes more electricity than normal internet browsing because the process running in the background is more complex.
According to Google’s report, emissions increased especially in data centers. According to the report, Google’s data centers in Europe and America run largely on renewable energy, but the situation is different in Asia and Africa.
In 2021, Google set the goal of being climate neutral by 2030. Now the company says in its report that reducing emissions has become more difficult when the company increases the use of artificial intelligence in its products.
Google aims to reduce the emissions of its data centers by, among other things, increasing the share of renewable energy.
Electricity demand is growing rapidly
Information and communication technology consumes an estimated tenth of the world’s electricity, and the share is only expected to grow. International Energy Agency IEA estimated in Januarythat the electricity demand of data centers and artificial intelligence may double by 2026.
Other technology companies are also having difficulties with their climate goals due to artificial intelligence. According to The Guardian Microsoft has stated that the energy used by data centers jeopardizes its goal of carbon neutrality for 2030.