One of the breeziest promises made about artificial intelligence is that it will enable us to tackle the world’s biggest challenges such as climate change. AI can help run smarter electricity grids, design more efficient electric vehicles and track plastic pollution in our oceans. But the data centres that host the latest AI models consume shocking amounts of energy and water. Is AI more of a problem than a solution when it comes to the climate emergency?
The ways in which technology is tugging in opposite directions is highlighted by the experience of Microsoft, which in 2020 made one of the boldest environmental commitments in corporate history. By 2030, the technology company promised, it would be carbon negative and by 2050 it would have offset all the emissions it had generated since its birth in 1975. But Microsoft still has a long way to go. Last month, it reported that its emissions had risen 29 per cent since 2020 as it continued to invest massively in data infrastructure.
This week, the company announced it was investing $3.2bn over the next two years to expand its cloud computing infrastructure in Sweden. In total, Microsoft intends to spend more than $50bn this year on data centres in what one analyst has called “the largest infrastructure buildout that humanity has ever seen”. The data consultancy Gartner forecasts that worldwide spending on data centres will rise 10 per cent this year to $260bn.