A new analysis of the 60 largest data centers under construction in the US by Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft estimates the sites could produce a cumulative 101.5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually once they’re fully up and running, Financial Times reports. That’s about 7% of all 2025 US power-sector emissions. Put another way, it’s the equivalent of running 27 coal power plants or putting 24 million more gas-powered cars on the road.
The backlash against America’s data center and artificial intelligence boom has been building for a while now, reaching a fever pitch over water use, land grabs and noise complaints. Recently, environmental activist Erin Brockovich has been mapping out communities affected by data center construction and operations, and polling shows that most Americans don’t want AI factories anywhere near them.
Now, it appears there’s a looming carbon problem to add to the pile.
Big Tech companies appeared publicly committed to cutting emissions just five years ago, making the new findings feel like a notable about-face. Financial Times found that Amazon’s emissions climbed 16% from 2024 to 2025, driven by data center construction and a 34% jump in electricity purchases. Microsoft reported a 25% increase in estimated emissions during the same period, while Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reported an 18% year-over-year increase in its emissions figure according to its own adjusted metric.
Researchers point to a mix of causes, from the sheer scale of demand for AI infrastructure to a political environment under the Trump administration that dramatically rolled back climate rules and clean energy tax credits in favor of fossil fuels.
Data center construction has revitalized local activism. In May, Albany, New York, residents gathered at a rally for the AI data center moratorium.
Will Waldron/Albany Times Union/Getty Images
On the grid side, the numbers tell a similar story. US gas-fired energy capacity under development nearly tripled in 2025, with FT’s analysts predicting the country’s existing gas-burning infrastructure could grow up to 50% if everything currently planned is built.
Researchers say it’s not that clean energy additions have stalled entirely; rather, utilities are racing to meet data center demand with power that’s available now, and that runs around the clock. Fossil fuels (like gas and coal) fit the bill better than wind or solar until large-scale storage tech catches up.
That’s left the tech giants leaning harder on renewable energy credits to make up the dirty differences between their public commitments and what’s actually happening on the grids. But doing so is expensive and exactly the sort of thing likely to be scaled back over time as profitability pressure mounts.
Utilities, meanwhile, are increasing production to meet the mounting and projected demand, preparing to roll out tens of thousands of megawatts of energy capacity across the US specifically to serve data center infrastructure. Three-quarters of the operators serving these 60 sites are building or planning new gas capacity, and a third of those running coal plants are pushing back retirement dates.
This fresh wave of gas and coal plants occupies a small but rapidly growing portion of the US energy generation mix — trending in the opposite direction to what experts expected only a few years ago. The resulting environmental impacts and grid strains from these energy decisions are stacking up to just one more AI boom cost that nobody outside the tech industry signed up for.
