Google’s environmental report pointedly avoids AI’s actual energy cost

Google has issued its 2024 Environmental Report, a greater than 80-page doc describing all the huge firm’s efforts to use tech to environmental points and to mitigate its personal contributions. However it completely dodges the query of how a lot power is AI utilizing — maybe as a result of the reply is “far more than we’d care to say.”

You’ll be able to learn the complete report right here (PDF), and truthfully it’s bought numerous fascinating stuff in it. It’s straightforward to neglect what number of plates an organization as large as Google retains spinning, and there may be some actually noteworthy work in right here.

As an example, it’s been engaged on a water replenishment program, whereby it hopes to offset the water utilized in its amenities and operations, finally making a web constructive. That is performed by figuring out and funding watershed restoration, irrigation administration and different work in that space, with dozens of such tasks all over the world being at the very least partially bankrolled by Google. It’s gotten to 18% of its water utilization replenished (by no matter definition of that phrase is used right here) that method and enhancing yearly.

The corporate additionally takes nice care to frontload the potential advantages of AI in local weather, issues like optimizing watering methods, creating extra fuel-efficient routes for vehicles and boats, and predicting floods. We’ve highlighted a number of of those already in our AI protection, they usually really could possibly be fairly useful in lots of areas. Google doesn’t have to do that stuff, and plenty of giant corporations don’t. So credit score the place credit score’s due.

However then we attain the part “Responsibly managing the useful resource consumption of AI.” Right here Google, so certain of each statistic and estimate till now, instantly spreads its palms and shrugs. How a lot power does AI use? Can anybody actually ensure?

But it have to be dangerous as a result of the very first thing the corporate does is downplay the complete information middle power market, saying it’s onlly 1.3% of worldwide power utilization, and the quantity of power Google makes use of is simply at most 10% of that — so solely 0.1% of all of the power on the planet is powering its servers, based on the report. A trifle!

Notably, in 2021, it determined it needed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030, although the corporate admits there may be numerous “uncertainty,” because it likes to name it, in how that may really occur. Particularly as a result of its emissions have elevated yearly since 2020.

In 2023, our complete GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions have been 14.3 million tCO₂e, representing a 13% year-over-year improve and a 48% improve in comparison with our 2019 goal base 12 months. This outcome was primarily attributable to will increase in information middle power consumption and provide chain emissions. As we additional combine AI into our merchandise, lowering emissions could also be difficult attributable to rising power calls for from the better depth of AI compute, and the emissions related to the anticipated will increase in our technical infrastructure funding.

(Emphasis mine on this and the quote beneath.)

But the expansion of AI is misplaced among the many aforementioned uncertainties. Google has the next excuse for why the corporate is just not being particular concerning the contribution of AI workloads to its normal information middle power invoice:

Predicting the long run environmental influence of AI is complicated and evolving, and our historic traits doubtless don’t totally seize AI’s future trajectory. As we deeply combine AI throughout our product portfolio, the excellence between AI and different workloads won’t be significant. So, we’re specializing in information center-wide metrics since they embody the general useful resource consumption (and therefore, the environmental influence) of AI.

“Advanced and evolving”; “the traits don’t doubtless totally seize”; “the excellence … won’t be significant”: That is the sort of language used when somebody is aware of one thing however would actually, actually favor to not let you know.

Does anybody really imagine Google doesn’t know, all the way down to the penny, how a lot AI coaching and inference have added to its power prices? Isn’t having the ability to break down these figures so exactly a part of the corporate’s core competency in cloud computing and information middle administration? It has all these different statements about how environment friendly its customized AI server items are, the way it’s doing all this work to scale back the power required to coach an AI mannequin by 100x, and so forth.

I’ve little question there are numerous nice inexperienced efforts occurring at Google, and you’ll learn all about them within the report. However it’s necessary to focus on what it seemingly refuses to: the large and rising power price of AI methods. The corporate might not be the first driver of worldwide warming, however regardless of its potential, Google doesn’t appear to be at a web constructive simply but.

Google has each incentive to downplay and obfuscate these figures, which even in its diminished, extremely environment friendly state, can hardly be good. We’ll remember to ask Google to get extra particular earlier than we discover out whether or not they get even worse within the 2025 report.