How Google is Making the Most of its Data Centre Spend

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Google’s reasoning for its increased emissions was due to developing Gen AI (Image: Google)
Google is powering full-steam-ahead with its data centre investments, despite earlier sustainability setbacks concerning its AI data centre facilities

When it comes to innovative data centres, Google is doubling down on its investments.

The tech giant continues to spend billions of dollars on new facilities to strengthen connectivity, bolster its AI offerings and prepare for increased adoption of cloud and high-performance computing (HPC). Notably, its recent US$2bn investment in the US is set to fund two new data centre campuses in South Carolina to continue improving the company’s infrastructure. 

As the company continues to secure these data centre strongholds, it is also working on achieving net zero emissions across all of its operations and value chain by 2030. 

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Google’s pathway to net zero

Google has been eager to be more sustainable for some time now, yet its total greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 were 48% more than in 2019, rising 13% within one year alone.

This was primarily due to the company’s power-hungry AI and data centre advancements, with Google now simultaneously boosting its power services whilst trying to keep emissions down.

"It was a very ambitious target," Google CEO Sundar Pichai tells Business Insider, "and we are still going to be working very ambitiously towards it. Obviously, the trajectory of AI investments has added to the scale of the task needed.

"We are now looking at additional investments, be it solar, and evaluating technologies like small modular nuclear reactors, etc."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Google’s reasoning for its increased emissions was due to developing generative AI (Gen AI), a type of AI that can create new content such as images, text, music, videos and audio. It uses machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to respond to prompts and solve problems for the user.

Despite the technology being immensely popular within the global business landscape, it uses incredibly large amounts of power and energy - giving giants like Google the significant challenge of trying to curb their energy usage. 

Keeping AI data centres sustainable 

Newly developed AI data centres are hotly debated, as environmental concerns rise around the world. With more customers than ever before looking to house their data, the industry has continued to expand - leading to initiatives to ensure sustainable development being drawn up around the world.

Google is entering the fold with such ambitions, with Sundar Pichai stating that the company is considering whether it should power its data centres with nuclear power plants. According to Business Insider, he says the company was considering if nuclear power and technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs) could be used to power its facilities. 

"For the first time in our history, we have this one piece of underlying technology which cuts across everything we do today," Pichai said. "I think the opportunity to do well here is something we are leaning into."

As Google considers new ways to meet energy demands for its Gen AI initiatives, it is hoped that it continues to consider carbon-free power sources. 

With data consumption growing more locally, Google has revealed its plans to continue expanding these technologies across the world. Notably, in Asia, the tech giant revealed back-to-back plans to build more data centres and cloud regions in both Thailand and Malaysia in investments totalling more than US$3bn over the next six years.

With a recent surge in data centre construction across Southeast Asia, Google is hoping to bolster its presence in the region and offer more public sector organisations and businesses the chance to leverage on-demand compute and AI.

With the growth of local data consumption and the need to adopt technologies such as AI and cloud computing, there has been a surge in data center and cloud region construction across Southeast Asia in recent years.

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