Microsoft AI Drive: Electricity Consumption Up 100%, CO2 Emissions Grow 42%

Microsoft’s sustainability plan seems slightly sidetracked as the tech firm prioritizes AI and cloud development. According to Stocklytics.com, its electricity consumption spiked by over 100%, while CO2 emissions have grown by 42%.

Edith Reads, the site’s financial analyst, comments:

Microsoft has been investing heavily in AI research and infrastructure, aiming to enhance capabilities across its suite of products, from Azure cloud services to Microsoft 365. This investment includes upgrading data centers and deploying advanced hardware to handle complex AI tasks. While these advancements drive innovation and efficiency in many areas, they also contribute to higher energy consumption, raising concerns about the sustainability of such rapid growth.

Stocklytics financial analyst, Edith Reads

Microsoft Electricity Consumption

After investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in building its Azure supercomputing infrastructure, Microsoft connected multiple Nvidia GPUs to its cloud platform, enabling ChatGPT and its Bing bot to be trained. This strategic move has yielded significant returns for the company, with Microsoft projected to add an impressive $40 billion to its revenue belt thanks to ChatGPT. 

However, the escalation in AI and cloud productivity has led to a dramatic increase in electricity consumption, reaching all-time highs. In FY 2020, Microsoft’s power consumption stood at 11 TWh, a figure that rapidly climbed to 14 TWh in the following fiscal year.

By FY 2022, electricity consumption soared to 18 TWh; in 2023, it exceeded 24 TWh—more than double the amount from 2020. 

Training ChatGPT-4 alone consumed over 62,000 MWh, equivalent to the power usage of 1,000 U.S. households over five years, underscoring the substantial energy demands required for training AI models.

Rising CO2 Emissions

Ideally, higher energy consumption translates into increased carbon emissions. Microsoft’s growing power demands for training its AI models and expanding its cloud infrastructure have resulted in more than a 40% rise in carbon emissions over the past four fiscal years. At the close of fiscal year 2020, the tech giant reported 12 million MtCO2e, but by 2023, that figure had risen to 17 million MtCO2e.

Despite efforts to transition to renewable energy sources, many data centers still rely on non-renewable energy, contributing to higher carbon emissions.

Microsoft’s Commitment To Zero Carbon Emissions

Microsoft aims to become carbon-negative by 2030 and eliminate all carbon emissions—direct and from electricity consumption—since its founding in 1975 by 2050. 

However, with the recent uptick in carbon emissions, this goal appears increasingly ambitious. Microsoft has long been working on its gradual shift to carbon-free electricity through the procurement of renewable energy, seeking cleaner sources of power, as seen with the use of eco-diesel fuel in its cloud segment in Sweden.

To meet its sustainability goals, Microsoft will have to work on its renewable shift as quickly as it develops new AI and cloud infrastructure projects.