As Big Tech giants including Google, Amazon and Microsoft have outlined plans to invest tens of billions of dollars into AI, climate experts have raised concerns about the environmental impacts of the power-intensive tools and systems. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have surged 48 per cent in the past five years due to the expansion of its data centres that underpin artificial intelligence systems, leaving its commitment to get to “net zero” by 2030 in doubt. Meanwhile, energy generation and transmission constraints are already posing a challenge for the companies seeking to build out the new technology. How will the tech expansionists compensate the climate ?

