Three years ago, Google announced an ambitious aim to combat climate change by becoming “net zero,” which means emitting no more climate-changing gases into the atmosphere than it removes by 2030.

However, a study released by the corporation on Tuesday showed that it needs to fulfill that target.

Rather than dropping, emissions increased by 13% in 2023 compared to the previous year. Emissions have increased by 48% from 2019, the baseline year.

Google | PixaBay Image

Google Falling Short Of Important Climate Target, Cites Electricity Needs Of AI

Google attributed last year’s spike to artificial intelligence and the increased demand for data centers, which consume vast amounts of electricity.

Burning coal or natural gas to produce electricity creates greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide and methane, which warm the globe and cause more extreme weather.

The corporation has made one of the most significant climate commitments in the sector and is recognized as a leader.

Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment, believes Google could do more to work with cleaner industries and invest in the electricity infrastructure.

“The reality is that we are far behind what we could already be doing now with the technology that we have, with the resources that we have, in terms of advancing the transition,” according to her.

Google Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt told The Associated Press that reaching net zero by 2030 is a tremendously ambitious target.

“We know this is not going to be easy and that our approach will need to continue to evolve,” says Brandt, “and it will require us to navigate a lot of uncertainty, including this uncertainty around the future of AI’s environmental impacts.”

According to some scientists, the fast-rising data centers required to power AI endanger the transition to clean electricity, which is critical for combating climate change. That’s because a new data center can either delay the closing of a fossil-fuel power plant or drive the construction of a new one. Data centers are not only energy-intensive, but they also require high-voltage transmission cables and large volumes of water to stay cool. They’re also noisy.

They are frequently developed where electricity is cheapest, rather than where renewables like wind and solar are a major energy source.

The International Energy Agency estimates that global data center and AI electricity usage will triple by 2026.

The growth of data centers is also putting pressure on the sustainability strategies of other large technology companies. According to an environmental sustainability report released in May, Microsoft’s emissions increased by 29% above the 2020 baseline.

Tech businesses argue that artificial intelligence, including tools like ChatGPT, is not just contributing to climate change but also helping to mitigate it.

In Google’s case, this may mean analyzing data to forecast future flooding or improving traffic flow to conserve gas.

Amanda Smith, senior scientist at the environment NGO Project Drawdown, stated that anyone who uses AI — whether huge corporations or individuals simply creating memes — must do so ethically, which means utilizing energy only when it helps society.

Google | PixaBay Image

Google Falling Short Of Important Climate Target, Cites Electricity Needs Of AI

“It’s up to us as humans to watch what we’re doing with it and to question why we’re doing that,” according to Smith. “When it’s worth it, we can make sure that those demands are going to be met by clean sources of power.”

Google’s emissions increased last year, partly because the corporation used more energy: 25,910 gigawatt-hours more, up from the previous year and more than doubling the hours consumed just four years before. A gigawatt-hour is equivalent to the amount of electricity produced by a power plant servicing hundreds of thousands of households in one hour.

On the plus side, as Google’s usage increased, so did its use of renewable energy.

In 2020, the corporation stated that by 2030, it would meet its vast electricity demand entirely with clean energy. Last year, Google reported an average of 64% carbon-free energy for its data centers and offices worldwide. The corporation’s data centers are 1.8 times more energy efficient than the industry average.

Sachs, at Columbia University, complimented Google for its ambition and honesty, but said she hoped “that Google would join us in a more rigorous conversation about how to accelerate” renewable energy under the climate crisis, “so that it doesn’t get much worse before it starts getting better.”

SOURCE – AP

(VOR News) – The Alibaba Cloud (or Aliyun) data facilities in Australia and India will soon be shutting down.

The business issued a statement on its website that read, “As part of Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure strategy update, we have decided to cease operations at our data centers in Australia and India while enhancing our investment in Southeast Asia and Mexico after careful assessment.”

The two countries’ data centers, in Mumbai and Sydney, are expected to close in July and September, respectively. Data centers in Mumbai will be shut down by July 15th, and those in Australia will be shut down by September 30th.

The corporation had “issued multiple rounds of notifications and technical migration plans to affected customers” since December 2023, according to the notice.

Alibaba has also asked impacted customers to move their data to the Singapore area or another appropriate location as quickly as possible. Analysts believe that customers will not be charged for the move, even though Alibaba did not answer to an email asking for clarification on whether or not these migrations will be paid.

Also, I sent an email asking why the data centers in those two nations shut down, but nobody answered.

Concerns about growth and geopolitical tensions

Possible influences on the decision to shut down operations in both nations include geopolitical tensions and Alibaba’s struggles with the expansion of its cloud business in those two nations.

“Alibaba is closing its operations in these two countries due to the limited business opportunities in these markets,” expressed Rajiv Ranjan, associate research director at IDC.

According to Ranjan, there are a number of factors, including the level of market maturity, that contribute to the limited opportunities for business expansion in these countries.

When it comes to cloud computing, Australia is well-established and has major providers like AWS, Google, and Azure. According to Ranjan, Alibaba’s data center size betrays its restricted operations, and the company’s small client base and lack of operations make it difficult to build a respectable market position.

Contrary to the company’s tradition of building huge data centers, Ranjan explained that the data center in Australia is a colocation facility. This, he added, is also true in India, where the business has two small availability zones in Mumbai. While Google and Oracle are quickly increasing their footprint in the Indian public cloud industry, Azure and AWS remain dominant.

This creates problems for Alibaba, says Ranjan.

According to Jain, the use of Chinese brands is not well-received in both markets, but more so in India due to the stagnation of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Mexico and Southeast Asia are on Alibaba’s expansion list.

Analysts agree that Mexico and Southeast Asia should be Alibaba Cloud’s primary investment targets.

A stronger brand presence in Southeast Asia has been achieved through Alibaba’s e-commerce operation. Their decision to focus on that sector is a direct result of that, Ranjan noted. To elaborate, Ranjan said that the data localization policy was the impetus for Alibaba to build a second availability zone in India’s data centers in 2022.

The goal of the firm, as Ranjan explained, was to get the most clients possible by using the investment.

In addition to their main client, Paytm, they have clients including Oppo, Vivo, DLF, and Reliance Entertainment in India. But according to Ranjan, their plans for expansion were thwarted since hyperscalers existed.

Alibaba’s public cloud products were on sale for up to 59% off in April. It was seen by analysts as a move to lessen the impact of competition from bigger hyperscalers in nations including the US, UK, UAE, SK, IL, SG, MM, PH, and TT.

The growth of Azure and AWS is expected. Businesses leaving Alibaba Cloud will face higher costs associated with switching to a new cloud provider, says Charlie Dai, a principal analyst at Forrester.

Despite this, analysts said that customers may choose other cloud service providers since they are uncomfortable sending their data abroad. Most of the customers that are going to leave Alibaba Cloud will probably go to Azure or AWS. Ranjan claims that AWS might gain from its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) status because it controls 60% of the Indian IaaS market.

Some budget-conscious customers may be interested in Alibaba Cloud because its costs are more in line with those of Google and Oracle, according to the analyst.

Azure and AWS could seem pricey to certain customers. But Azure has raised prices for the first six months of 2024,” Ranjan went on to say.

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Under Pressure On Plane Safety, Boeing Is Buying Stressed Supplier Spirit For $4.7 Billion

Canada’s WestJet Cancels 235 Flights After Sudden Mechanics Strike

Arlington, Virginia  – Boeing has announced plans to acquire crucial supplier Spirit AeroSystems for $4.7 billion, claiming that the acquisition will boost jet quality and safety in the face of increased scrutiny from Congress, airlines, and the Department of Justice.

Boeing formerly controlled Spirit, and the acquisition would reverse a long-standing Boeing strategy of outsourcing critical work on its passenger jets. This technique has been criticized after problems at Spirit hampered the manufacturing and delivery of major Boeing jetliners such as the 737 and 787.

Boeing |Ap News Image

Under Pressure On Plane Safety, Boeing Is Buying Stressed Supplier Spirit For $4.7 Billion

“We believe this transaction is in the best interests of the flying public, our airline customers, the employees of Spirit and Boeing, our shareholders, and the country as a whole,” Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in a statement late Sunday.

Safety concerns arose following the January 5 burst of a panel on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 at 16,000 feet (4,876 meters) over Oregon. The Federal Aviation Administration soon announced greater oversight of Boeing and Spirit, which supplied the plane’s fuselage.

There were no significant injuries in the Alaska Airlines door incident, which startled passengers, but the US Justice Department is pressuring Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud in connection with two catastrophic airline disasters involving its 737 Max jetliners more than five years ago.

According to three people who heard federal prosecutors outline a planned offer on Sunday, Boeing has until the end of the week to accept or reject the offer. The offer includes the major aerospace corporation agreeing to an independent monitor to oversee its compliance with anti-fraud rules.

In a May court filing, the Justice Department stated that Boeing breached the conditions of a 2021 settlement that allowed the corporation to avoid prosecution for its activities leading up to the Ethiopia and Indonesia crashes, which killed 346 people.

These crashes were caused by a defective sensor in a flight-control system, and the investigation is different from the one into the more recent Alaska Airlines blowout, which involved Spirit.

In 2005, Boeing spun off Spirit, a company based in Wichita, Kansas, unrelated to Spirit Airlines. In recent years, quality issues have arisen, such as fuselage panels that needed to fit together precisely enough and holes that were incorrectly drilled.

Boeing | AP News Image

Under Pressure On Plane Safety, Boeing Is Buying Stressed Supplier Spirit For $4.7 Billion

Spirit fired its CEO in October and replaced him with Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive who served as temporary defense secretary during the Trump administration.

Things appeared to be going more smoothly until the Alaska Airlines incident. Investigators said a panel used to replace an extra emergency door was removed at a Boeing factory to allow Spirit workers to repair broken rivets, and bolts that keep the panel in place were missing following the repair. It is unclear who removed the bolts and neglected to reinstall them.

Spirit announced in May that it was cutting off approximately 450 workers at its Wichita factory due to a production slowdown following the January event. Its overall workforce numbered just over 13,000.

“Bringing Spirit and Boeing together will enable greater integration of both companies’ manufacturing and engineering capabilities, including safety and quality systems,” Shanahan told the media.

According to the aerospace business, the stock value of the acquisition is $4.7 billion, or $37.25 per share, while the total value of the transaction is roughly $8.3 billion, including Spirit’s most recent declared net debt.

Boeing said its common stock will be exchanged for Spirit shares using a variable formula based on a weighted average of the share price during a 15-day trading period that concludes on the second day before the transaction closes.

The businesses also announced a deal with Airbus to pursue the purchase of Spirit assets associated with the European aerospace firm’s programs. The Airbus agreement will take effect after Boeing’s acquisition of Spirit is completed, according to the two US businesses.

SOURCE – (AP)