From the «how long can you tread water AI» department:
Title: Can the climate survive the insatiable energy demands of the AI arms race?
Author: Dan Milmo, Alex Hern and Jillian Ambrose
Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2024 05:00:29 +0000
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/04/can-the-climate-survive-the-insatiable-energy-demands-of-the-ai-arms-race
Podcast Download URL: https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/aec25eda9acc54b1bb0a014896d86a73ea7dd4b7/0_62_2000_1202/master/2000.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=5f5dc6d446bcf5d9e084e933ea1c5f5e

New computing infrastructure means big tech is likely to miss emissions targets but they can’t afford to get left behind in a winner takes all market

The artificial intelligence boom has driven big tech share prices to fresh highs, but at the cost of the sector’s climate aspirations.

Google admitted on Tuesday[1] that the technology is threatening its environmental targets after revealing that datacentres, a key piece of AI infrastructure, had helped increase its greenhouse gas emissions by 48% since 2019. It said “significant uncertainty” around reaching its target of net zero
emissions by 2030 – reducing the overall amount of CO2 emissions it is responsible for to zero – included “the uncertainty around the future environmental impact of AI, which is complex and difficult to predict”. Continue reading...[2]

Links:
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/02/google-ai-emissions (link)
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/04/can-the-climate-survive-the-insatiable-energy-demands-of-the-ai-arms-race (link)

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