Amazon's CO2 emissions have surged due to the construction of data centers – Bloomberg

The American tech giant Amazon recorded a significant increase in carbon dioxide emissions in 2025, driven by the large-scale construction of data centers and the growth of e-commerce. Last year, the company’s operations resulted in emissions of approximately 81 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, a 16% increase compared to 2024. 

This is reported in the tech giant’s annual sustainability report, which notes that the company’s total emissions rose by 58% compared to 2019, when management publicly committed to completely eliminating them by 2040.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence and cloud computing is forcing the company to build new servers, which require significant amounts of concrete and steel, and also consume enormous amounts of energy, driving investment in U.S. natural gas-fired power plants. As a result, Amazon’s carbon dioxide emissions from electricity purchases alone rose by 34% over the course of a year. An additional factor contributing to the environmental impact has been the increase in package deliveries within the retail business, which jeopardizes previous climate commitments made by both Amazon itself and other global technology leaders.

Source: Bloomberg News.

As a reminder, Microsoft plans to allocate approximately $80 billion in fiscal year 2025 to develop data centers for training artificial intelligence models.

Tesla says it will build new “first-of-their-kind” data centers. The automaker is hiring staff for this purpose and acquiring some existing data centers.