- Google partners with energy companies to power future data centers
- Google's next series of data centers would use solar and wind farms
- Move is part of a total investment of $20 billion
A new partnership between Google, energy company Intersect Power and climate solutions organization TPG Rise Climate will seek to provide clean energy for the company's future data centers.
As demand for AI grows rapidly, technology companies are expanding their capabilities, but Google is taking a positive step towards a sustainable future with on-site renewable energy sources for its data centers.
Data centers are notoriously causing energy consumption to skyrocket and, at the current rate, will soon use more energy than we currently produce. This means companies have to weigh accelerated consumption and their sustainability goals.
A “power first” approach
To help address this issue, Google hopes to connect its data centers directly to solar and wind farms, rather than the existing power grid that overwhelmingly uses fossil fuels. This would also ease the burden on the already weakened power grid and improve reliability for power customers.
The first phase of this infrastructure development is expected to be operational in 2026 and amounts to an investment of $20 billion in total. In the future, where possible, Google will build on-campus data centers powered by its own clean energy, in “co-located industrial parks.”
Google hopes this is a “plan for the future” and will allow the company to expand its digital infrastructure in a sustainable way. It seems unlikely that AI will consume less energy in the foreseeable future, so creating sustainable solutions will be key.
“To realize the potential of AI, the growth in electricity demand must be met with new, clean energy sources.” said Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of data center power at Google.
“The scale of AI presents an opportunity to completely rethink data center development, placing them where possible with grid-connected carbon-free energy keeping them running.”
