Big tech carbon emissions jump nearly 19% to rival France

AI data center boom drives reversal in climate progress

Microsoft, Amazon and Google collectively emitted 119 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in the financial year ending March 2026, a nearly 19% increase from roughly 101 million tonnes the prior year, according to the companies’ annual sustainability reports released over the past weeks. The combined emissions total about a third of France’s annual carbon footprint.

The previous year, the three companies emitted roughly 101 million tonnes, an amount equivalent to Czechia’s 2024 emissions.

The increases mark a sharp reversal after years in which the three companies had appeared to be flattening their emissions. The boom in artificial intelligence, which requires energy-intensive data centers to train and operate chatbots and other AI products, is driving a global push to build facilities. JLL, a U.S. property consultancy, estimates about 1,200 data centers are to be built globally between now and 2030, with demand overwhelmingly driven by AI.

In its sustainability report released Thursday, Microsoft said its carbon emissions had increased by 25% over the past year to 20 million tonnes, “driven primarily by the expansion of our datacentre infrastructure.” The company’s emissions had appeared to flatline at 16 million tonnes in 2023 and 2024 prior to this year’s jump.

Google said its emissions had increased 18% over the past year, “driven by increases in supply chain activities that supported the rapid expansion of our business.” The search company said its AI systems have come up with solutions that have already helped to reduce emissions elsewhere by 41 million tonnes of CO2 last year.

Amazon reported a 16% increase in emissions overall and a 20% increase in supply chain emissions, which included data center building and construction. The company described the increase as “making progress” toward its goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2040.

All three companies still say they aim to achieve net zero emissions: Google and Microsoft by 2030, Amazon by 2040.

“The increases in total carbon emissions are strongly correlated with [the companies’] AI investment,” said Shaolei Ren, a professor of electrical engineering at University of California, Riverside. Ren noted that Microsoft’s sustainability report also suggested that there were fewer carbon credits available on global markets to offset its emissions. “While companies are actively investing in or purchasing carbon credits, the figure suggests a possible lack of credit supply in the carbon market to meet the technology companies’ needs,” he said. “Everyone is talking about the lack of physical goods and infrastructure like power, but there may also be a lack of virtual goods — carbon credits.”

Cecilia Rikap, an economics professor at University College London, said: “Claims by Microsoft, Amazon and Google about their clouds being ecologically friendly and sustainable are a marketing strategy. Governments should remember these expanding carbon footprints when the very same companies offer addressing the ecological crisis with AI solutions.” She added that as companies migrate to cloud services, they are effectively “outsourcing their own digital/AI carbon footprint to cloud giants,” which she said helps other corporations obscure their environmental footprint.

The data center boom is accompanied by vast projected power demands. The Uptime Institute, which rates and inspects data centers, estimates that big data center projects announced last year would consume 1.3% of the world’s electricity usage, or a near-doubling of current data center demand. The majority of that new power demand is expected to come from U.S. projects, the institute said.

The world’s biggest tech companies are on track to spend $765 billion this year, mostly on building AI data centers in locations ranging from Norway to North Tyneside, England.