The rapid spread of artificial intelligence and cloud computing from 2020 to 2023 has come with a significant environmental cost. A recent report by the United Nations’ digital agency, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), has found that major tech firms saw their carbon emissions surge by an average of 150% over this period.
For instance, Amazon’s emissions leapt by 182%, while Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet experienced increases of 155%, 145%, and 138% respectively. This striking rise covers both the emissions produced directly and those generated from purchased energy, clearly illustrating the high energy demands of today’s digital and AI-driven services.
Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of the ITU, noted, “Advances in digital innovation – especially AI – are driving up energy consumption and global emissions.” She also warned that if these trends continue unchecked, emissions from AI systems could soar to 102.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year.
An important challenge highlighted in the report is the absence of standardised methods for disclosing AI-related emissions. This makes it harder to fully understand the overall impact on our environment, although companies heavily invested in AI clearly face a steep emissions climb.
Data centres are particularly affected, with electricity consumption rising by 12% each year since 2017. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), these centres utilized 415 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, roughly 1.5% of global demand. If current trends hold, the energy use of data centres could eclipse Japan’s total consumption by 2030.
In 2024, digital firms together consumed about 581 TWh of electricity – around 2.1% of the world’s total usage. Notably, energy consumption is heavily concentrated among a few giants. Companies such as China Mobile, Amazon, Samsung Electronics, China Telecom, Alphabet, Microsoft, TSMC, China Unicom, SK Hynix, and Meta account for more than half of this demand.
Emissions data from 166 companies for 2023 showed a combined output of 297 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, an amount comparable to the total emissions of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile together. If you’ve ever been concerned about the environmental footprint of our digital age, these figures serve as a clear reminder of the challenges we face.
This report is a call to action for both tech giants and policymakers; while the benefits of innovation are immense, they must be balanced with efforts to manage energy use and reduce emissions responsibly.
