chloe kaczenski humbert

The Grim Truth Behind Microsoft’s Plan for Three Mile Island and A.I. Can A.I. be green? Not like this—especially when the company is also selling its A.I. tools to oil and gas companies. The New Republic Mike Pearl / September 30, 2024 Microsoft owns power-hungry data centers in Wyoming, and the company’s angst about the carbon footprint of those data centers is well documented. As of 2013, it powered at least one with waste methane given off by a local water treatment facility, and in 2021, it announced grants to local environmentalists as it built more, along with promises that they’re “built with sustainability top of mind.”  It’s hard not to feel, however, that the company is now entering the realm of self-satire. For example, if I were writing a darkly comedic prestige drama about Microsoft’s efforts to green up, even as its A.I. ambitions cause its energy needs to spike, I might worry that having the company sell A.I. products to ExxonMobil and Chevron designed to help find new oil and gas deposits would be, while delightfully nefarious, too implausible. Amazingly, Microsoft is actually doing this. Still, after Bill Gates’s nuclear power project went off the rails, I would resist the temptation to have my CEO character say, “Fuck it! Let’s reopen Three Mile Island.” That would be downright hacky.