AI and Climate Change: How they're connected, and what we can do about it

The tech industry faces criticism for the significant energy used to power its computing infrastructure. In response, the major tech companies have made data centers more efficient, and worked to ensure they're powered at least in part by renewable energy. These changes are a step in the right direction, but don't come close to tackling the problem. Most large tech companies continue to rely heavily on fossil fuels, and when they do commit to efficiency goals, these are not open to public scrutiny and validation. Researchers Lotfi Belkhir and Ahmed Elmeligi estimate that the tech sector will contribute 3.0–3.6% of global greenhouse emissions by 2020, more than double what the sector produced in 2007 (Belkhir and Elmeligi, 2018).