Microsoft and other American technology corporations successfully pushed the EU to adopt a confidentiality clause that blocks public access to environmental data from individual datacentres.
Microsoft and other US tech giants have effectively lobbied the EU to obscure the environmental impact of their data centers, with their demands to keep sustainability metrics out of public view written almost word for word into EU rules, The Guardian reported, citing an investigation.
The secrecy provision, which the European Commission added to its proposal nearly word-for-word following industry lobbying in 2024, prevents scrutiny of pollution emitted by individual datacenters. Researchers are left with only national-level summaries of energy consumption rather than facility-specific data.
The rapid expansion of AI chatbots has fueled a construction boom in chip-filled warehouses that consume massive amounts of electricity. A portion of that power demand is being satisfied by burning fossil gas.
Legal experts have raised concerns that the blanket confidentiality clause may violate EU transparency regulations and the Aarhus Convention, an international treaty guaranteeing public access to environmental information. (more...)
US tech giants lobbied EU to hide datacenter pollution data
No comments:
Post a Comment