As Google has pushed to incorporate artificial intelligence into its main businesses, with sometimes disappointing results, a problem has emerged behind the scenes: the systems required to run its AI tools have significantly increased the company’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Artificial intelligence systems require a large number of computers to function properly. Data centers, essentially warehouses full of powerful computing equipment, need massive amounts of energy to process data and handle the heat generated by all of those machines.
Google’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Soaring Thanks To AI
According to Google’s annual environmental report, its greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 48% since 2019. The IT giant attributed the spike primarily to “increased data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions.”
Google now describes its aim of reaching net-zero emissions by 2030 as “extremely ambitious,” and says the vow will likely be influenced by “the uncertainty around the future environmental impact of AI, which is complex and difficult to predict.” In other words, the company’s sustainability push, which formerly contained the tagline “don’t be evil” in its code of conduct, has become more challenging due to artificial intelligence.
Like other internet companies, Google has invested heavily in artificial intelligence (AI), which is widely regarded as the next major technological revolution ready to revolutionize how we live, work, and consume information. The business has integrated its Gemini generative AI technology into some of its core products, including Search and Google Assistant, and CEO Sundar Pichai has described Google as an “AI-first company.”
However, AI has a significant drawback: the power-hungry data centers that Google and other Big Tech companies are investing tens of billions of dollars each quarter to develop to feed their AI goals.
To demonstrate how much more demanding AI models are than traditional computing systems, the International Energy Agency estimates that a Google search query requires 0.3 watt-hours of electricity on average, whereas a ChatGPT request typically consumes approximately 2.9 watt-hours. According to a study published in October by Dutch researcher Alex de Vries, the “worst-case scenario” implies that Google’s AI systems might someday consume as much electricity as Ireland per year, assuming full-scale AI adoption in their existing hardware and software.
“As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging due to increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute, and the emissions associated with the expected increases in our technical infrastructure investment,” said Google in its report, released Monday. It also stated that data center electricity use is currently outpacing the ability to bring carbon-free electricity sources online.
Google’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Soaring Thanks To AI
Google expects greenhouse gas emissions to climb before declining as it invests in clean energy sources like wind and geothermal to power its data centers.
The vast amounts of water required to cool data centers to prevent overheating also pose a sustainability concern. Google plans to refill 120% of the freshwater consumed in its offices and data centers by 2030; last year, it recovered only 18% of that water, a significant increase from 6% the previous year.
Google is among the companies using AI to combat climate change. A 2019 Google DeepMind research study, for example, trained an AI model on weather forecasts and historical wind turbine data to estimate wind power availability, thereby increasing the value of renewable energy to wind farmers. The corporation has also utilized AI to recommend more fuel-efficient routes to vehicles using Google Maps.
“We know that scaling AI and using it to accelerate climate action is just as crucial as addressing the environmental impact associated with it,” according to Google’s report.
SOURCE – CNN
