Google LLC produced 13% more emissions in 2023 than a year earlier, the search giant disclosed today.

The Alphabet Inc. unit attributed the increase primarily to its supply chain and higher data center energy consumption. According to the company, the higher energy demand was partly driven by artificial intelligence workloads. Google and other major cloud providers have made significant investments in recent years to equip their data centers with more AI chips.

High-end data center graphics cards consume significantly more power than a standard central processing unit. Additionally, they generate more heat, which means they often require sophisticated water-based cooling equipment. The power used to operate that cooling equipment also factors into AI workloads’ environmental footprint.

Google generated 14.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions last year, the company disclosed today in the latest edition of its annual sustainability report. That’s 13% more than in 2022. One of the main factors behind the increase was a 37% jump in Google’s market-based emissions, which are mainly attributed to its data centers’ energy use.

Across its operations, the company used 25,910 gigawatt-hours of electricity last year. One gigawatt-hour is enough to power several hundred thousand households for 60 minutes. Google used 21,776 gigawatt-hours in 2022 and 12,237 five years ago.

The search giant says that carbon-free energy sources accounted for 67% of its power consumption in 2023. Additionally, Google signed contracts to purchase four more gigawatts of clean energy capacity in Australia, Belgium, Texas and other locations. That’s more than the amount it bought in any prior year, according to its new sustainability report.

The past year also saw Google inaugurate a geothermal power generation site in Nevada. The facility, which was built by a startup called Fervo Energy, comprises two horizontal wells that use subsurface heat to generate electricity. The wells are equipped with fiber-optic cables that track their temperature and collect other technical data.

Another focus of Google’s sustainability push is the water used by its data centers for cooling purposes. According to the company, its internal water stewardship program replenished about 1 billion gallons of water last year. That represents 18% of its freshwater consumption, a threefold increase from with 2022.

Google’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint also encompass its chip design roadmap.

Last year, the company introduced a new internally developed AI chip dubbed Trillium. Google says that it’s 67% more power-efficient than the previous processor in the series. Trillium lends itself both to training foundation models and running them in production.

Google has set a goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2030. That means the company plans to fully negate the emissions produced by its operations and supply chain, as well as run entirely on carbon-free energy. 

Photo: Google