In the twelve months to March 2026, three American technology companies produced more carbon than the entire nation of France does in a year. Microsoft, Amazon and Google collectively emitted 119 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent — up from roughly 101 million the previous year, a figure that had already matched the annual emissions of the Czech Republic. The driver, according to all three companies' own sustainability reports, is the same: the frantic construction of datacentres needed to power artificial intelligence. Each company's figures tell a similar story.

Microsoft recorded a 25% rise in emissions, which it attributed primarily to expanding its datacentre infrastructure. Google reported an 18% increase, linked to supply-chain activity behind its rapid business growth, while also claiming that its AI tools helped cut emissions elsewhere by 41 million tonnes last year. Amazon logged a 16% overall rise and a 20% jump in supply-chain emissions — and yet still described this trajectory as "making progress" toward its 2040 net-zero target. Critics are unconvinced by that framing.

Cecilia Rikap, an economics professor at University College London, argues that the green promises made by these companies are, in practice, a marketing strategy. She raises a second, subtler concern: when businesses migrate their operations to the cloud, they effectively transfer their digital carbon footprint to the tech giants, making their own environmental records appear cleaner than they really are. The pollution does not disappear — it simply moves off the corporate balance sheet. What makes this moment significant is that the AI investment wave is still accelerating.