Microsoft’s AI Obsession is Jeopardizing Its Climate Ambitions

Microsoft is producing significantly more planet-heating pollution now than it did when it made a bold climate pledge back in 2020. Its greenhouse gas emissions were around 30 percent higher in fiscal year 2023, highlighting the challenges the company faces in meeting its climate goals as it simultaneously races to be a leader in artificial intelligence (AI).

Training and running AI models is an increasingly energy-hungry endeavor, and the impact that’s having on the climate is just starting to come into view. Microsoft’s latest sustainability report is a compelling case study in the conundrum facing big tech companies that made a slew of climate pledges in recent years but could wind up polluting more as they turn their focus to AI.

The AI-Climate Conundrum

In many ways the moon is five times as far away as it was in 2020," Microsoft President Brad Smith remarked in an interview with Bloomberg. This statement underscores the unforeseen challenges Microsoft faces in achieving its climate goals in the AI era.

Back in 2020, Microsoft set a target of becoming carbon negative by the end of the decade. To translate the jargon, it pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions by more than half and then capture a greater amount of carbon dioxide emissions than it would produce. It was an audacious commitment, considering carbon capture technologies were barely coming into existence. The company would also have to spur the deployment of significantly more renewable energy onto the power grids where it operates.

Now, it looks like the company’s recent obsession with AI is making that much harder to achieve. Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI to date and is “turning everyone into a prompt engineer” for generative AI with new features in Copilot for Microsoft 365. The Verge’s Tom Warren even launched a newsletter called Notepad to keep you up to date on all things Microsoft and AI.

A Carbon Moonshot

“In 2020, we unveiled what we called our carbon moonshot. That was before the explosion in artificial intelligence,” Smith said. “So in many ways the moon is five times as far away as it was in 2020 if you just think of our own forecast for the expansion of AI and its electrical needs.”

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The Wrong Direction

Diving into the data in Microsoft’s sustainability report, you can see just how far it’s gone in the wrong direction. It pumped out 15.357 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over the last fiscal year, comparable to the annual carbon pollution of countries like Haiti or Brunei.

Data centers used to train AI are even more energy-intensive than traditional data centers, which already consume a lot of electricity to run servers and cooling systems to prevent overheating. Microsoft has plans to build a whole lot more of these data centers now that it’s all in on AI. The company planned to spend $50 billion over the past fiscal year to meet its AI ambitions — a figure it’s expected to surpass in the following year, according to Bloomberg reports.

The Path Forward

Microsoft’s situation highlights a broader issue within the tech industry: the balance between advancing technological capabilities and maintaining environmental responsibilities. As AI continues to evolve and demand more resources, companies like Microsoft must innovate in both areas to avoid exacerbating the climate crisis.

Moving Forward:

1. Investing in Renewable Energy: Microsoft must accelerate its investments in renewable energy to offset the increasing energy demands of AI.

2. Innovative Cooling Solutions: Developing more efficient cooling technologies for data centers could significantly reduce their energy consumption.

3. Sustainable AI Development: Prioritizing sustainability in AI research and development to create less energy-intensive models.

Microsoft’s ambitious climate goals are at a critical juncture. Balancing its leadership in AI with its environmental commitments will require significant innovation and investment. The stakes are high, not just for Microsoft, but for the planet.