Analysis Shows All Those Data Centers Under Construction Will Output As Much CO2 As 24 Million Cars

We've known for a while that AI's endless thirst for more power was going to lead to a lot more emissions in the short term. A new analysis puts what that means into perspective: The biggest 60 data centers under construction by America's leading tech companies will produce an extra estimated 101.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, pumping it into the atmosphere at that level every year. That is like an additional 24 million gas cars driving around. While solar has been booming in the U.S. and around the world, this progress against climate change threatens to be undone by systems that hallucinate entire motorcycles that don't exist.

The report from the Financial Times (via CNET) states that Amazon's emissions went up 16% from 2024 to 2025, better than Alphabet (Google) at 18% and Microsoft at a whopping 25%. This is largely due to the massive electrical demands that these data centers require, something that is already stressing the existing power grid. Just to make it worse, the Trump administration has also been slashing clean energy tax credits, which makes it harder to do this all without polluting.

Nobody told me the robot revolution would be this smoggy. To save ourselves from the robots, the same massive tech companies that are making them have a solution: go to space. Data centers need round the clock power, which solar can't do because of, you know, night (though batteries are helping make up the difference). So why not simply put giant mirrors into space to reflect sunlight at all times? 

This plan (which sounds more like a supervillain's plot to melt the ice caps) is now an actual plan from Meta. If that's not sci-fi enough, Google proposed creating a formation-flying fleet of AI data centers into orbit; not to be outdone, as usual, SpaceX then filed for permission to put 1 million such satellites into orbit. As these companies point out, at least in space, you get constant solar power, and you don't produce any emissions on Earth.

If space doesn't work out, tech companies might just use nukes. Many of them are signing agreements with nuclear power startups. Nuclear power sources have the ability to run 24/7 and don't produce any CO2, which is good. It's also enormously radioactive, which is bad, and why so few nuclear plants have been built in the last few decades. These startups are promising that their new, much smaller reactors will be safe and more readily able to adapt to changing energy needs. Let's hope, for the sake of the "go fast, break stuff" tech industry, and for the sake of our air-breathing lungs, that they're right.