Are hyperscalers backing out of Net Zero?

Expanding data center construction and demand for high-energy workloads are pushing hyperscalers off course on carbon

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The environmental impact of AI is a growing area of study and one that businesses must begin to seriously consider.

When you power a data center with coal, it’s obvious that it’s having a detrimental impact on the environment. But is a ‘green’ data center really green? And to what extent might the benefits of AI outweigh potential environmental negatives?

In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss the shifting sustainability targets of the world’s public cloud giants, as caused by AI, and what they’re doing to get back on track.

Highlights

"Google had a 22% rise in scope three emissions in 2023 for example, and it pinned a lot of this on increases in data center capacity. Microsoft and AWS don't give exact figures, but they similarly attributed it to data center build out. AWS, in fact, said that its scope three rise was primarily from data center construction and fuel consumption by third party delivery service providers, so that all gets tallied up."

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"One of the ways that they're beginning to do this is by using cleaner materials. So something that we covered is that Microsoft has actually begun using mass timber for its data center construction, which to some degrees, supplements steel and concrete. Google and AWS and Microsoft as well are also looking at methods to buy lower carbon concrete, which is just formulated in a different way, to reduce the upfront emissions associated with it."

"In all cases, this is not out of the hands of the company. The company has just made a decision that it would rather pursue aggressive data center expansion than meeting its 2024, 2025, sustainability targets."

"Ultimately, though, these sites can only be so efficient, and when you really, really drill down, one of the main things that they're going to have to do... is secure just clean power or data centers in order to prove credentials. The other thing that the hyperscalers will really have to do before, I think before 2030 is prove that the actual output of these data centers has some kind of net positive for the environment."

Footnotes

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Rory Bathgate
Rory Bathgate
Features and Multimedia Editor

Rory Bathgate is Features and Multimedia Editor at ITPro, overseeing all in-depth content and case studies. He can also be found co-hosting the ITPro Podcast with Jane McCallion, swapping a keyboard for a microphone to discuss the latest learnings with thought leaders from across the tech sector.

In his free time, Rory enjoys photography, video editing, and good science fiction. After graduating from the University of Kent with a BA in English and American Literature, Rory undertook an MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies at King’s College London. He joined ITPro in 2022 as a graduate, following four years in student journalism. You can contact Rory at rory.bathgate@futurenet.com or on LinkedIn.

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