Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 48% since 2019, making it harder for the company to meet its goal of cutting emissions in half by 2030. The main contributor to this increase is data center energy use and supply chain emissions, with electricity consumption from data centers growing by 17% in 2023.
As Google further integrates AI into its products, reducing emissions may become more challenging due to the increasing energy demands from AI compute and the associated emissions from infrastructure investment. The company expects its data centers’ electricity consumption to continue growing, accounting for up to 10% of global data center electricity consumption by 2030.
To mitigate its environmental impact, Google is trying to make its AI models, hardware, and data centers more energy-efficient. It also aims to run on carbon pollution-free energy around the clock on each power grid it plugs into by 2030.