Generative AI is reportedly tripling carbon dioxide emissions from data centers
New research has claimed the rapid development of, and demand for, generative AI has accelerated the rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from data centers.
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.
Morgan Stanley's report outlined 60% of the emissions figure will come from the operations of the data centers as they require massive amounts of power to run. The remaining 40% is likely to be thanks to the carbon emitted from the manufacturing of the construction materials and infrastructure for the centers.
With Google already reporting a 48% increase in emissions over the last five years, unsurprisingly, this brings net zero emissions targets into question. The tech industry already amounts to 40% of the entire annual emissions from the US - so carbon dioxide removal technologies are poised to play a key role in achieving environmental targets.
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