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Google’s huge new Essex datacentre to emit 570,000 tonnes of CO2 a year


Exclusive: Planning documents show impact of Thurrock ‘hyperscale’ unit as UK attempts to ramp up AI capacity

The plans were submitted by a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and the carbon impact emerged before a concerted push by Donald Trump’s White House and Downing Street to ramp up AI capacity in Britain. Keir Starmer’s government has forecast a 13-fold rise in the amount of computer processing power AI will use by 2035 and is scrambling to supply the datacentres to meet that demand in the hope the technology will boost Britain’s insipid economic productivity. It “will lead to a net increase in GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions of 568,727 tonnes CO₂е [carbon dioxide equivalent] per year in during the operational phase”, planning documents examined by the Guardian show.

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