A warning sign about AI’s real cost, courtesy of Google and Amazon
A warning sign about AI’s real cost, courtesy of Google and Amazon
关于人工智能真实成本的警示：来自谷歌与亚马逊的报告
It’s no secret that AI is a hog, consuming energy and water like no digital technology before it. Now we know just how much Big Tech’s pursuit of AI is costing the environment. Both Google and Amazon released their sustainability reports this week, and the numbers aren’t pretty. 众所周知，人工智能是一个“耗能大户”，其消耗的能源和水资源远超以往任何数字技术。现在，我们终于了解到科技巨头对人工智能的追求正在给环境带来多大的代价。谷歌和亚马逊本周均发布了各自的可持续发展报告，数据并不乐观。
Each company has pledged to zero-out its carbon emissions in the coming years, but AI has made those goals a lot harder to hit. Google’s total carbon emissions are up 25% since last year, Amazon’s are up 16%. A close reading of the reports suggests that both Amazon and Google will have to make some serious, and potentially costly, adjustments to their businesses if they’re going to achieve their net-zero targets. 两家公司都曾承诺在未来几年内实现碳零排放，但人工智能让这些目标变得更加难以实现。谷歌的总碳排放量较去年增长了 25%，亚马逊则增长了 16%。仔细研读这些报告可以发现，如果亚马逊和谷歌想要实现其净零排放目标，就必须对其业务进行重大且可能代价高昂的调整。
Neither company comes out and blames AI directly for the rising emissions, but there’s plenty of indirect evidence. AI at the center of it all Both Amazon and Google acknowledge their energy use has increased significantly in the last year as use of AI has risen. Both talk about carbon intensity — essentially, how much pollution a company generates for every dollar of revenue it brings in — a metric China has used over the last several years when negotiating climate treaties even as its emissions were skyrocketing. And both devote several pages touting how AI can benefit the environment, a case of “protesting too much,” to borrow some Shakespeare. 尽管两家公司都没有直接将排放量上升归咎于人工智能，但间接证据比比皆是。人工智能处于这一切的核心：亚马逊和谷歌都承认，随着人工智能使用量的增加，它们去年的能源消耗显著增长。两家公司都提到了“碳强度”——即公司每产生一美元收入所产生的污染量——这一指标是中国在过去几年谈判气候条约时使用过的，尽管当时中国的排放量也在飙升。此外，两家公司都用了好几页篇幅来吹捧人工智能如何造福环境，借用莎士比亚的话说，这简直是“辩解得太多了”。
The picture gets clearer the deeper you dig into the data. Both companies are actually doing OK when it comes to carbon pollution from energy purchases. Years of buying renewable power have helped keep a lid on things, though that may change in the near future as tech companies, including Google, have begun to invest heavily in natural gas power plants to keep pace with AI’s power demands. Rather, most of Amazon’s and Google’s growing carbon footprint comes from so-called Scope 3 emissions — a catch-all category covering pollution a company doesn’t directly control, like the goods and services it buys or the products it sells. 深入挖掘数据后，情况变得更加清晰。在能源采购产生的碳污染方面，两家公司的表现其实尚可。多年来购买可再生能源有助于控制排放，但这种情况在不久的将来可能会改变，因为包括谷歌在内的科技公司已开始大量投资天然气发电厂，以跟上人工智能的电力需求。事实上，亚马逊和谷歌不断增长的碳足迹主要来自所谓的“范围 3”排放——这是一个涵盖公司无法直接控制的污染的统称，例如公司购买的商品和服务，或其销售的产品。
For companies like Amazon and Google, Scope 3 includes things like GPU purchases and the use of a company’s products, like phones and tablets. Google lumps together two categories of Scope 3 emissions — capital goods and use of sold products — though it admits the latter is small enough to not be material. (Most of Google’s hardware products are small devices that don’t consume a lot of electricity.) That likely leaves data centers as the main driver. 对于亚马逊和谷歌这样的公司，“范围 3”包括购买 GPU 以及用户使用其产品（如手机和平板电脑）所产生的排放。谷歌将“范围 3”中的两类排放——资本货物和已售产品的使用——归为一类，尽管它承认后者规模很小，不构成实质性影响。（谷歌的大多数硬件产品都是不消耗大量电力的微型设备。）这很可能意味着数据中心才是主要的驱动因素。
Last year, Google’s Scope 3 emissions increased by 2.1 million metric tons, which means they’re now double what they were in 2019, the year Google uses as its baseline when assessing its performance. Amazon’s rising Scope 3 emissions mostly come from capital goods and fuel and energy. The former can include data centers and warehouses, which can help explain why Amazon’s Scope 3 emissions spiked higher than Google’s. Still, a good chunk is probably data centers. “To meet strong customer demand, in 2025 we added more data center capacity globally than any other company, including more than 1.2 gigawatt (GW) in Q4 alone,” Amazon wrote in the report. 去年，谷歌的“范围 3”排放量增加了 210 万公吨，这意味着现在的排放量是 2019 年（谷歌评估绩效的基准年）的两倍。亚马逊不断上升的“范围 3”排放主要来自资本货物以及燃料和能源。前者包括数据中心和仓库，这有助于解释为什么亚马逊的“范围 3”排放量比谷歌增长得更猛。尽管如此，其中很大一部分可能仍来自数据中心。亚马逊在报告中写道：“为了满足强劲的客户需求，我们在 2025 年在全球范围内增加的数据中心容量超过了任何其他公司，仅第四季度就增加了超过 1.2 吉瓦 (GW)。”
Hitting a wall That kind of spending helps explain why decarbonization is suddenly getting so much harder. For years, the biggest contributor to their carbon footprints was energy for offices and more modestly sized data centers. That could easily be canceled out buying renewable power. AI has upended that approach. While tech companies could still use renewables plus batteries to power their data centers, they’re starting to fall back on fossil fuels. It’s a trend that will make their net-zero pledges that much harder to deliver, but it’s not irreversible. 撞上南墙：这种支出有助于解释为什么脱碳突然变得如此困难。多年来，它们碳足迹的最大贡献者是办公室和规模较小的数据中心的能源消耗。这可以通过购买可再生能源轻松抵消。但人工智能颠覆了这种方法。虽然科技公司仍然可以使用可再生能源加电池来为数据中心供电，但它们正开始重新依赖化石燃料。这一趋势将使它们的净零承诺更难实现，但并非不可逆转。
The more pernicious emissions come from the construction and outfitting of data centers themselves. The steel and cement industries are both heavy polluters, and while startups are working on low-to-zero carbon approaches, they’re still not ready to deliver at the scale that tech companies need. Then there are the GPUs and memory chips powering the AI boom. Semiconductor manufacturing uses lots of energy, and many of the world’s leading-edge chip factories are located in Asia, where the electrical grids remain dominated by fossil fuels. Making matters worse, many of the chemicals used in those factories are also potent greenhouse gases, capable of warming the atmosphere thousands of times more than an equivalent amount of CO2. The bingeing on chips has probably inflated both Amazon’s and Google’s carbon footprints. 更隐蔽的排放来自数据中心本身的建设和装备。钢铁和水泥行业都是重污染行业，尽管初创公司正在研究低碳或零碳方案，但它们仍无法达到科技公司所需的规模。此外，还有驱动人工智能热潮的 GPU 和存储芯片。半导体制造消耗大量能源，而世界上许多尖端芯片工厂都位于亚洲，那里的电网仍以化石燃料为主。更糟糕的是，这些工厂使用的许多化学品也是强效温室气体，其大气增温潜势是等量二氧化碳的数千倍。对芯片的疯狂采购可能已经推高了亚马逊和谷歌的碳足迹。
None of these problems are intractable, though Amazon, Google, and their peers have their work cut out for them. To deliver on their net-zero pledges, they’ll need to ramp up their renewable energy purchases, invest heavily in advanced steel and cement manufacturing, and buy many millions of tons of carbon removal credits. It’s still possible, but their embrace of AI hasn’t made it any easier. 这些问题并非无法解决，尽管亚马逊、谷歌及其同行面临着艰巨的任务。为了实现净零排放承诺，它们需要增加可再生能源采购，在先进钢铁和水泥制造领域投入巨资，并购买数百万吨的碳清除额度。这仍然是有可能的，但它们对人工智能的拥抱并没有让事情变得更容易。