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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Technology
Isabel O'Brien

Data center emissions probably 662% higher than big tech claims. Can it keep up the ruse?

An Amazon Web Services data center
An Amazon Web Services data center in Ashburn, Virginia, on 28 July 2024. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Big tech has made some big claims about greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. But as the rise of artificial intelligence creates ever bigger energy demands, it’s getting hard for the industry to hide the true costs of the data centers powering the tech revolution.

According to a Guardian analysis, from 2020 to 2022 the real emissions from the “in-house” or company-owned data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple are probably about 662% – or 7.62 times – higher than officially reported.

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