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With KB5043178 to Release Preview Channel, Microsoft advises Windows 11 users to plug in when the battery is low

Copilot in Outlook will generate personalized themes for you to customize the app

Microsoft will raise the price of its 365 Suite to include AI capabilities

Death Stranding Director’s Cut is now Xbox X|S at a huge discount

Outlook will let users create custom account icons so they can tell their accounts apart easier

Microsoft’s AI ambitions at significant odds with its climate pledges

AI is undermining Microsoft’s environmental commitments

2 min. read

Published onMay 16, 2024

published onMay 16, 2024

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According tothe company’s latest sustainability report, Microsoft’s pursuit of injecting most of its services and products with artificial intelligence is significantly increasing its carbon footprint.

Despite several environmental pledges to reduce its carbon footprint by reaching carbon neutrality by 2030, its recent AI endeavor will not only set Microsoft’s carbon-negative roadmap back by a substantial amount but could threaten its ability to even achieve the stated goal altogether.

Microsoft’s2024 Enviornmental Sustainability Reportshows a thirty percentincreasein the company’s carbon footprint since last year, and that it can contribute much of the growth to resource intensive AI development.

Earlier this month Microsoft announced anew $17 billion dollar investment in a renewable purchasingpartnership with Brookfield Asset Management tasked with obtaining 10.5 gigawatts of energy for the company.

However, its 2022 partnership with the Los Angeles based startup CarbonCapture last year appears to be the more vital collaboration for Microsoft going forward as the company is on record emitting 15.357 million metric tons of carbon dioxide during its fiscal calendar in 2023.

While renewable energy will go a long way to powering these resource intensive AI models, the fact that they are spewing more carbon than they are consuming electricity is quickly creating an environmental imbalance Microsoft will need to soon address.

Microsoft’s does offer a handful of future-leaning solutions to help combat the onslaught of environmental consequences that come with its continued AI development as well as regular business output that include improving measurement and efficiencies in its operations.

Microsoft’s plans to build more efficient data centers with servers in low-power states and reduce peak power consumption overall. Other solution posited by Microsoft include infrastructure decarbonization, innovations in low-carbon concrete, improving measurements across its supply chain, partnering with businesses more transparent about their emissions, reducing emissions in Cloud Logisitics, purchasing carbon-free electricity, and measuring semiconductor emissions among other items.

Microsoft’s Sustainability reports isn’t a damning profile of AI pursuit by the company, but a bellwether to the environmental toll this nascent technology already claims.

Hopefully, Microsoft can realign its AI ambitions with its 2020 environmental commitments and get back its original 2030 goal of net negative carbon emissions while providing Copilot services and products to more people.

Kareem Anderson

Networking & Security Specialist

Kareem is a journalist from the bay area, now living in Florida. His passion for technology and content creation drives are unmatched, driving him to create well-researched articles and incredible YouTube videos.

He is always on the lookout for everything new about Microsoft, focusing on making easy-to-understand content and breaking down complex topics related to networking, Azure, cloud computing, and security.

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Kareem Anderson

Networking & Security Specialist

He is a journalist from the bay area, now living in Florida. He breaks down complex topics related to networking, Azure, cloud computing, and security

With KB5043178 to Release Preview Channel, Microsoft advises Windows 11 users to plug in when the battery is low#

Copilot in Outlook will generate personalized themes for you to customize the app#

Microsoft will raise the price of its 365 Suite to include AI capabilities#

Death Stranding Director’s Cut is now Xbox X|S at a huge discount#

Outlook will let users create custom account icons so they can tell their accounts apart easier#

Microsoft’s AI ambitions at significant odds with its climate pledges#