Artificial intelligence (AI) is a tool that requires a lot of energy to operate. This also implies an enormous environmental impact. That’s why Microsoft will reforest the Amazon to “offset” its expenditure.
The tech giant will allocate 200 million dollars to the project. How extensive is the carbon footprint and how much energy this type of innovation requires to operate effectively.
Why Microsoft will reforest the Amazon
Microsoft will reforest the Amazon. (Photo: Wikipedia).[/caption>
In 2022, global data center consumption was around 460 TWh, approximately 2% of all electricity in use.
By 2026, the International Energy Agency estimates that consumption will be 1000 TWh: energy consumption equivalent to that of all of Japan.
On the other hand, cryptocurrencies, which also require enormous amounts of energy, will consume about 160 TWh in 2026.
Such is the situation that major tech companies have begun to invest in nuclear power plants to power their data centers.
Microsoft’s carbon footprint
One of the companies that need energy to power AI is Microsoft, whose carbon footprint in 2023 was 17 million tons of CO2.
This is 40% more than in 2020. Their consumption is offset by the use of renewable energies and the purchase of carbon emissions from other entities.
Likewise, they committed to buying 3.5 million carbon credits over the next 25 years from the Brazilian company re.green. Each credit is equivalent to one metric ton.
Neither of the two companies disclosed the amount, but Financial Times estimates the transaction at around 200 million dollars.
This is the second agreement the tech company has signed with the Brazilian company. The first was less than a year ago, in May, and the goal was to reforest 15,500 hectares.
The newly announced agreement adds 17,500 hectares, bringing the total to 33,000 hectares. To give us an idea, it is an area equivalent to three times the size of Paris or 100 times the extension of Central Park.
Since the agreement began in May, re.green has planted 4.4 million seeds of 80 native species in 11,000 hectares of “degraded or abandoned” land in the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest.
The Amazon has lost 88 million hectares since 1985
Deforestation in the Amazon.[/caption>
The Amazon has lost over the last 39 years (1985-2023) more than 88 million hectares of forests, an area almost as large as the extension of Venezuela, according to the data generated by an analysis by Mapbiomas Amazon, an initiative of the Amazonian Network of Socioenvironmental Georeferenced Information (RAISG).
According to this study, carried out through the comparison of satellite images, in nearly four decades, the Amazon rainforest lost 12.5% of the coverage it had in 1985.
