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Generative AI is reportedly tripling carbon dioxide emissions from data centers (www.techradar.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A report from Morgan Stanley suggests the datacenter industry is on track to emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play.

The extra demand from GenAI will reportedly lead to a rise in emissions from 200 million tons this year to 600 million tons by 2030, thanks largely to the construction of more data centers to keep up with the demand for cloud services.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (7 children)

God damnit not this swill again. It's not even close to triple, it's like 15%. Read. The. Reports.

For real. Why does this misinformation keep spreading? I have the actual real numbers right in front of me now.

And it's the same as what MIT Technology Review reported and what Google reported publicly.

The EU's CSRD requires most of these companies to disclose their carbon emissions. So just go look it up, ya taints.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You are not thinking cumulatively.

It's not even close to triple, it's like 15%.

1.15^7=2.66

From the article

"emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yep absolutely, and even those numbers likely represent raw emissions figures vastly lower than the true impact these data centres are having on global emissions.

For example, that Google report talks about EACs - here's a great podcast episode that explains why these kinds of accounting methods are a complete disaster:

Reveal: It's Not Easy Going Green

https://revealnews.org/podcast/its-not-easy-going-green-update-2023/

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