Google’s goal to run its business 24/7 on carbon-free energy with local clean energy matching remains in place, according to the company’s Singapore and Malaysia Country Managing Director, even as the company grapples with the challenge of powering its major AI infrastructure buildout.
Google announced its “moonshot” goal in 2020, establishing a 24/7 CFE ambition to run its entire business on carbon-free energy (CFE) by 2030, matching electricity demand with CFE supply every hour of every day, in every region where the company operates.
Speaking at the Ecosperity conference in Singapore on Tuesday, Google Managing Director Ben King said, “we have a commitment to get to carbon-free positioning by 2030, and that commitment remains.”
The confirmation comes as Google and its tech giant peers face competing pressures to build out energy-hungry data center infrastructure to meet increasing demand for AI computing power, and to meet their ambitious emissions reduction and clean energy goals – particularly those focused on matching power consumption with local clean energy generation. Recent media reports, for example, have suggested that Microsoft is reconsidering its “100/100/0” goal to have 100% of its electricity consumption, 100% percent of the time, matched by purchases from zero carbon energy sources.
Speaking in a discussion about responsible AI deployment, King said “first of all, we need to manage our own house… and we take that very seriously.” After confirming the 2030 goal King added:
“We’ve just committed something in the vicinity of $190 billion in technical infrastructure or capex this year. And so, you know, that is a dualistic challenge: There’s great advancements that we’re going to drive, but then obviously that creates challenges around how do we actually power those data centers and how do we do it in the right way.”
The discussion also referenced Google’s stance on a new proposal by emissions reporting framework GHG Protocol to introduce a new hourly matching and deliverability requirement for Scope 2 emissions reporting, with the moderator noting that “what you want to avoid is people running data centers day and night, but able to say that they’re powered by solar because they’ve bought offsets and Google has been very clear that they want not to do that.”
King responded:
“We have been clear. 2030 is the goal, and it remains such.”
