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Google\u2019s electricity use and emissions skyrocketed last year due to its aggressive AI infrastructure buildout, according to the company\u2019s most recent environmental impact report<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest change to our environmental impact is the expansion of our technical infrastructure \u2014\u00a0and the energy needed to operate it,\u201d reads the report.<\/p>\n The report adds that in the years since 2019, Google\u2019s electricity demand has risen by a staggering 250 percent, an increase chalked up to the \u201caccelerating growth\u201d of Google products and services including Cloud, Search, YouTube, and \u2014\u00a0yes \u2014\u00a0its \u201cAI capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis rapid expansion in energy demand is a reality we must manage actively,\u201d the report continues, \u201cand we\u2019re committed to ensuring that the growth of AI doesn\u2019t become a rationale for lowering our environmental standards.\u201d<\/p>\n Between 2024 and 2025, the company\u2019s electricity demand experienced a 37 percent year-over-year bump; that\u2019s ten percent more than its 27 percent increase from the previous year. Greenhouse gas emissions, meanwhile, experienced an 18 percent rise, which Google mainly credited to the manufacturing of AI hardware.<\/p>\n The report is the latest to underscore the pressure that AI, which now underpins the American economy, is putting on existing energy infrastructure and an already deeply burdened climate<\/a>. As companies including Google push to install new AI data centers across the country, Americans \u2014\u00a0who really hate data centers<\/a> \u2014\u00a0continue to rail against them. That intense public pushback, of course, is one of the reasons why Google<\/a> and other AI competitors have proposed building data centers in space.<\/p>\n In its report, Google cushions this troubling uptick in its environmental impact by couching the stark figures in language about AI\u2019s promise as a \u201cpowerful tool for global climate action\u201d and claims about how its AI efforts are \u201cunlocking meaningful societal and economic benefits.\u201d The report also points to Google efforts to make its data centers more energy and water efficient.<\/a><\/p>\n The reality, though, is that currently, AI is serving as an excuse for Google to lower its environmental standards. And while the company has invested significantly into clean energy, it\u2019s clear that the search giant \u2014\u00a0which is still gunning to win the ongoing AI arms race \u2014\u00a0sees its rapidly-climbing environmental footprint as a necessary evil in the near-term. Without comprehensive AI regulation in place, that\u2019s entirely Google\u2019s bet to make.<\/p>\n