Google reported that its carbon emissions have increased by 48 percent in the past five years due to the energy consumption required to use the Artificial intelligence (AI) in its products, reaching an emission of 14.3 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2023.
With the rise of AI, big tech companies have developed their own models and technologies, as is the case of Google with Gemini, in order to offer tools and functions in their services that provide new ways of working, creating content or communicating.
However, using this technology to carry out different tasks often involves very high energy consumption, which increases carbon emissions in the data centres where AI is operated. As a result, it means a setback in the fight against climate change.
In this context, Google said that, during the year 2023, its total carbon dioxide emissions have risen to 14.3 million tons, which represents an increase of 48 percent compared to the emissions recorded in 2019.
The technology company made this announcement in the latest results of its annual Environmental Report, in which it offered an analysis of its efforts to leverage technology, especially AI, to drive positive environmental change and operate sustainably, in addition to noting its intention to achieve net zero emissions in all its operations by 2030.
However, the US company clarified that as it continues to integrate AI into its products, reducing emissions “may be a challenge.” In fact, its carbon emissions for 2023 have increased by 13 percent compared to the previous year.
This represents an almost 50 percent increase in CO2 emissions over a five-year period, which Google attributed to increases in energy consumption at its data centers and emissions from its product chain.
Specifically, as he explained, this increase in consumption is due to the energy demands required by its AI technologies. As he pointed out, since there is more and more demand for AI tools in general, the intensity of AI computation is also increasing, and therefore the associated emissions.
According to the report, the total electricity consumption of its data centers grew by 17 percent last year and, given that Google’s infrastructure “continues to drive the digital transition,” the company expects this trend to continue to increase in the future.
MINIMIZE YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
In this context, Google also stated that expanding AI and using it to accelerate action against climate change is “as crucial as addressing the environmental impact associated with it.” Therefore, the technology company pointed out that they are carrying out different initiatives to reduce their environmental footprint.
For example, he stressed, they build more energy-efficient computing infrastructures, supported by responsible water use practices and a commitment to resource minimization. In doing so, they achieve that a Google-owned and operated data center is approximately 1.8 times more energy efficient than a corporate data center.
Thus, by 2023, the average annual energy efficiency of its data centers was 1.10 instead of the industry average of 1.58. This means that its data centers use approximately 5.8 times less overall energy for each unit of energy from IT equipment.
USING AI TO DRIVE CLIMATE ACTION
Google also stated in its report that AI has the potential to help mitigate between 5 and 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. To this end, it indicated that they are pushing AI in key areas such as organizing information, improving prediction, and better optimization.
An example of this initiative is the fuel-efficient routing feature, which organizes information by analyzing traffic, terrain, and the vehicle’s engine to suggest the most efficient route. With these types of initiatives, Google has helped reduce more than 2.9 million metric tons of emissions from the end of 2021 to the end of 2023. This is equivalent to taking approximately 650,000 cars off the road for one year.
Source: EUROPA PRESS
