Google’s carbon footprint is skyrocketing: Emissions have nearly doubled in the past five years, a trend the company attributes to growing demand for AI.
Google’s annual environmental report provides insight into the impact of AI on data center energy consumption. There are frequent warnings that AI will consume so much energy that data centers will need to expand and look into greener alternatives. Usually, these cries come from predictions. Google has now published some alarming numbers about the reality: over the past five years, CO2 emissions have increased by 48%.
Last year, data centers emitted 14.3 million tonnes of CO2. The explosive increase is due to the rise of AI, which has led to increased energy consumption, which in turn has led to increased fossil fuel consumption and therefore CO2 emissions.
Far from climate goals
We need to invest in sustainable alternatives, so we can be less reliant on fossil fuels. Google is already actively working on this issue, launching an offshore wind project in the Netherlands earlier this year. This project should decarbonize 90% of the energy used by Google’s data centers and offices in the Netherlands. The results will be available in a report next year. Efforts to run data centers on cleaner energy were launched simultaneously in Poland, Italy and Belgium.
While more sustainable solutions are being explored, it seems more investments will be needed to meet climate targets. Google has set a goal of operating completely climate-neutral by 2030. Microsoft has the same goal, but its carbon emissions last year increased 30 percent since 2020.
The report does not hide its concern that these climate goals will be difficult to achieve: “Further integration of artificial intelligence into products could pose challenges to reducing emissions, as the increased intensity of AI computations is expected to increase energy demand and investments in technology infrastructure.”
No brakes on expansion
The rise of AI puts cloud providers in a tricky situation: on the one hand, providers want to invest in AI tools and Google Cloud wants to gain market share in Europe by using this technology as a unique aspect compared to other cloud providers, and on the other hand, there are legitimate concerns about the energy consumption and environmental impact of such data centers.
Cloud providers recognize the complexities, but right now they are prioritizing serving their customers. As cloud providers want to deliver AI, they are expanding existing European cloud regions and setting up new ones. Google is building a new data center in Winschoten, Netherlands, Microsoft is expanding its existing infrastructure in Sweden, and AWS is busy with a possible expansion in Milan, Italy. In fact, these are just a few examples, with one party or the other announcing a new data center in Europe almost every week in recent weeks. Clearly, concerns are not putting the brakes on building new sites.
Also read: AWS buys nuclear-powered data center: smart sustainability?
Increased water consumption
The sudden increase in energy consumption due to AI has caught all the attention this year. Last year’s report highlighted the figures on drinking water consumption. The report again provides insight into these figures, showing that 24 billion liters of water were consumed last year. Compared to last year (19.38 billion liters), the situation seems to be worsening. Google Cloud wants to operate water neutrally by 2030 and eventually revert 120% of its total water consumption.
As a first step towards this goal, Google Cloud will focus on non-potable water usage, and in new locations, will focus more directly on water replenishment options.
To reduce water consumption, it is again important to find solutions that meet the energy demands of data centers in a sustainable way. Currently, water is used as a coolant for servers and rooms. “Indeed, water cooling has been shown to help reduce energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions compared to air-based cooling,” the report states.
Challenging goals
Google Cloud must continue to work to become climate neutral and water neutral by 2030. Other cloud providers are more careful about sharing the environmental impact of their data centers, but the situation is not as good. All cloud players are working on AI and significantly expanding their facilities for it. This technology is energy-intensive, so water cooling may be a partial solution, but it comes at the expense of drinking water resources.
Hint! Google Cloud uses 19.38 billion liters of drinking water and will be discharge-free by 2030.
