Tech giants' indirect emissions rose 150% in three years as AI expands, UN agency says

Indirect carbon emissions from the operations of four of the leading AI-focused tech companies rose on average by 150% from 2020-2023, due to the demands of power-hungry data centres, a United Nations report, opens new tab said on Thursday.

The use of artificial intelligence by Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Meta (META.O), opens new tab drove up their global indirect emissions because of the vast amounts of energy required to power data centres, the report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the U.N. agency for digital technologies, said.