Big tech’s data centres have been accused of generating 662% more emissions than they have admitted to, as AI’s growth sees energy demand across the sector soar, The Guardian reported.
According to the UK news site’s analysis, from 2020 to 2022 the real emissions from the “in-house” data centres of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple were likely to be about 7.62 times higher than was officially reported, the report continued.
Amazon is the clear leader among the big five tech companies in emissions with the second-biggest emitter, Apple, generating less than half of Amazon’s emissions in 2022, the story went on. But its numbers were not included because its data centre emissions could not be isolated.
The International Energy Agency says that data centres accounted for 1% to 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2022 – and that was before the AI boom began with ChatGPT’s launch at the end of that year.
AI is far more energy-intensive on data centres than typical cloud-based applications. According to Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search, and it predicts data centre power demand will grow 160% by 2030.
Read the full story: The Guardian
By Sean O’Meara
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