Google’s huge new Essex datacentre to emit 570,000 tonnes of CO2 a year

Keir Starmer’s government has forecast a 13-fold rise in the amount of computer processing power AI will use by 2035. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

A new Google datacentre in Essex is expected to emit more than half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to about 500 short-haul flights a week, planning documents show.

Spread across 52 hectares (128 acres), the Thurrock “hyperscale datacentre” will be part of a wave of mammoth computer and AI power houses if it secures planning consent.