A report from Morgan Stanley suggests the datacenter industry is on track to emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play.
The extra demand from GenAI will reportedly lead to a rise in emissions from 200 million tons this year to 600 million tons by 2030, thanks largely to the construction of more data centers to keep up with the demand for cloud services.
God damnit not this swill again. It’s not even close to triple, it’s like 15%. Read. The. Reports.
For real. Why does this misinformation keep spreading? I have the actual real numbers right in front of me now.
And it’s the same as what MIT Technology Review reported and what Google reported publicly.
The EU’s CSRD requires most of these companies to disclose their carbon emissions. So just go look it up, ya taints.
You are not thinking cumulatively.
1.15^7=2.66
From the article
“emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play.”
Yep absolutely, and even those numbers likely represent raw emissions figures vastly lower than the true impact these data centres are having on global emissions.
For example, that Google report talks about EACs - here’s a great podcast episode that explains why these kinds of accounting methods are a complete disaster:
Reveal: It’s Not Easy Going Green
https://revealnews.org/podcast/its-not-easy-going-green-update-2023/
I build the infrastructure that these data centers need to connect to the internet. Our projected power consumption is at least tripling from last year which was itself double the year before, and that’s only the power draw for the fiber optic infrastructure connecting these data centers together. They’re also building a ridiculous amount of computing power in those data centers which is another massive increase in power consumption.
There are some kind-of green efforts in progress to mitigate a bit of the environmental impacts of that increase in demand but most of what I have seen personally is just more draw from the local utility company. I have serious doubts about any data that indicates that tripling power consumption is not a major environmental problem.
If you’re the one working on this infrastructure, then why are the reports saying that it’s only 13%? Are you guys lying on the forms?
I have no idea where that data comes from and that’s exactly the point I’m making. It doesn’t match my personal experience at all.
Could you cite the reports for us?
Something something AI BAD, didn’t read.