The United Nations Digital Agency said that operating carbon emissions of top tech companies in the world rose by an average of 150% between 2020 and 2023, as investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers drive global electricity demand.
Amazon's operating emissions grew 182% at 2023 levels in 2023, while Microsoft's emissions grew 155%, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta grew 145%, and Google's parent Alphabet grew 138% during the same period, according to data from the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU) (ITU).
These figures include emissions directly generated by the operations of the company and operations consumed by purchasing energy. They are included in a new ITU report that evaluates greenhouse gas emissions from 200 digital companies around the world between 2020 and 2023.
UN agencies link the sharp rise to recent AI breakthroughs and the demand for digital services such as cloud computing.
“Advances in digital innovation, especially AI, are driving energy consumption and global emissions,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of ITU.
While these innovations mark a huge technological breakthrough, unchecked emissions from the highest-launch AI systems could soon reach 102.6 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, the agency said.
"Currently, companies have no standards or legislation requiring disclosure of their AI emissions or energy consumption, which makes it less effective to understand AI's impact on company-level energy use," the report said.
“However, the company reported data shows that companies that adopt high-level companies are increasingly operating emissions.”
The AI and cloud computing boom have led to a similar surge in electricity demand in data centers, which helps with electricity digital services. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), electricity in data centers has increased by 12% year-on-year since 2017.
Data centers alone consume 415 units of electricity (TWH), accounting for 1.5% of global electricity demand. According to the IEA data, if demand for data centers continues to grow at this rate, TWH will reach 945 TWH by 2030, surpassing Japan's annual electricity consumption.
Meanwhile, the longing digital companies consume 581 TWH of electricity in 2024, accounting for about 2.1% of global demand, although demand is highly concentrated among top companies.
According to data provided by 164 companies in the report, the report generated only 51.9% of electricity demand in 2023. They are China Mobile, Amazon, Samsung Electronics, China Telecom, Alphabet, Microsoft, TSMC, China Unicom, SK Hynix and Meta.
Public emission data from 166 of 200 companies show that they emit 297 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually in 2023, the same as the total emissions from Argentina, Bolivia and Chile.