The Reputation of tech giants as a safe investment for investors interested in the environment, social issues, and governance as well as consumers who value sustainability is clashing with a new reality – the development and deployment of AI capabilities.
With new data centres that use enormous quantities of electricity and water, as well as power-hungry GPUs used to train models, AI is becoming a greater environmental risk.
For instance, reports show that Amazon’s data centre empire in North Virginia has consumed more electricity than Seattle, the company’s home city. In 2022, Google data centres used 5.2 billion gallons of water, an increase of 20% from the previous year. The Llama 2 model from Meta is also thirsty.
Some examples of tech-giants that have taken initiatives to reduce the added environment strain include Microsoft’s commitment to have their Arizona data centers consume no water for more than half the year. Also, Google announced a cooperation with the industry leader in AI chip Nvidia and has a 2030 goal of replacing 120% of the freshwater used by its offices and data centres.
However, these efforts seem like some carefully-crafted marketing strategy, according to Adrienne Russell, co-director of the Center for Journalism, Media, and Democracy at the University of Washington.
“There has been this long and concerted effort by the tech industry to make digital innovation seem compatible with sustainability and it’s just not,” she said.
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