Microsoft emissions rise 27% in fiscal year amid AI buildout
Microsoft's greenhouse gas emissions shot up 27% in its latest fiscal year, mostly because of its rapid AI infrastructure buildout.
The company's emissions climbed from 16.7 to 21.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (mtCO2e), even as revenue grew by 15%.
This marks the first increase in at least six years that Microsoft's emissions intensity (pollution per dollar earned) actually increased.
Microsoft pauses credits, electricity emissions jump
In February 2025, Microsoft paused buying carbon credits and energy certificates, which led to a 10-fold jump in electricity-related emissions and put its carbon-neutral status on hold.
The company now says it will "temporarily move us out of a carbon-neutral position."
Google and Amazon are seeing similar spikes as their AI operations expand, while the U.N. is urging tech giants to switch their data centers to renewables by 2030.