Big Tech’s climate strategists feeling strain of AI power needs

Weeks after ChatGPT was unleashed on the world in November 2022, sustainability executives at Microsoft Corp realised they had a big problem.

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On the tech giant’s 500-acre campus in Redmond, Washington, teams began holding regular “triage” meetings to confront serious questions posed by the artificial intelligence boom: Where would the company find the gigawatts — just one gigawatt can power nearly 750,000 US homes — needed for data centres? And how could Microsoft possibly secure that extra energy while still making progress toward a longstanding goal of going carbon-negative?

The AI discussions were “interesting and terrifying all at the same time,” said Brian Janous, who served until August 2023 as Microsoft’s vice president of energy. Microsoft and other major tech companies, he said, had to “lookat the climate commitments they set and say, ‘Can Istill do this?”

Nearly three years later, Microsoft and rivals including Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google are still struggling to answer that question. On one hand, they’re trying to obtain every electron possible to power their trillion-dollar bet on AI. On the other, they’re trying to stay true to a goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 or sooner.

US President Donald Trump isn’t making this challenge any easier. Since taking office, he’s slashed federal funding for green initiatives, such as wind and solar, and signalled his support for powering AI with generators that use fossil fuels, includingaging coal-fired plants. Wary of irritating theirbiggest ally in Washington, tech leaders so far have refrained from publicly challenging the president over his campaign against renewables.