Welcome to Zero. I am Akshadrati. This week, AI's climate impact.

We've been wanting to do episodes exploring artificial intelligence, energy and the climate for some time now.

And we have some exciting things in the works for you in the weeks ahead.

There are basically two big questions here.

What can artificial intelligence do to help fight climate change?

And on the flip side, how might AI's resource consumption exacerbate

emissions?

Today we are talking about the second question, because we've just found the first concrete

example of how the pursuit of AI is colliding with the efforts to cut emissions.

Last week, my Bloomberg colleague Dina, and I wrote a story about the impact of Microsoft's AI expansion,

and we interviewed Microsoft President Brad Smith to get his reactions.

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Hi, nice to you're here.

In 2020, Microsoft pledged to remove more carbon than it emits by the end of this decade.

If the company was on track, then its emissions should have been roughly 30% lower in 2023.

But as the company's AI ambitions have expanded, its emissions have instead increased by 30%.

Some of the numbers are startling.

Last year, the tech giant's power consumption rivaled that of a small European country.

Slovenia consumed less electricity in 2023 than Microsoft did. And it's a development that's likely to be repeated

by other competitors that are also chasing their own AI goals. After all, Microsoft's AI push

has made it the world's most valuable company worth more than $3 trillion. Other companies want what Microsoft has.

But Microsoft is also the company that's been leading on climate plans.

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