Big Tech’s Climate Strategists Feeling Strain of AI Power Needs

Weeks after ChatGPT was unleashed on the world in November 2022, sustainability executives at Microsoft Corp. realized they had a big problem.

On the tech giant’s 500-acre campus in Redmond, Washington, teams began holding regular “triage” meetings to confront serious questions posed by the artificial intelligence boom: Where would the company find the gigawatts — just one gigawatt can power nearly 750,000 US homes — needed for data centers? And how could Microsoft possibly secure that extra energy while still making progress toward a long-standing goal of going carbon-negative?

The AI discussions were “interesting and terrifying all at the same time,” ...