Photo by Chris LeBoutillier on Unsplash
UN Says Tech Giants’ Carbon Emissions Rose 150% in Last 3 Years Amid AI Boom
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- A UN report reveals carbon emissions from top AI companies rose by 150% between 2020 and 2023.
- Amazon’s operational emissions grew 182% in 2023 compared to 2020, while Microsoft’s rose by 155%, Meta’s by 145%, and Alphabet’s by 138%.
- 10 tech firms account for half of the sector’s emissions.
According to the report , titled Greening Digital Companies 2025: Monitoring emissions and climate commitments , the use of AI technologies has contributed to an increase in both direct and indirect global emissions.
“The digital companies assessed in this year’s report consumed an estimated 581 TWh of electricity (2.1% of global demand), with AI being one probable driver of this growth,” states the document. And 10 tech companies were responsible for 50% of those emissions.
“Currently, there are no standards or legislative requirements for companies to disclose their AI emissions or energy consumption, which makes understanding the impact of AI on company-level energy use less straightforward,” states the report. “However, data from company reports show an increasing trend in operational emissions for companies with a high level of AI adoption.”
The study noted that the combined annual carbon footprint of these tech companies is equivalent to the total yearly emissions of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile combined.
The UN agency emphasized that companies should disclose more comprehensive data and publish dedicated climate reports.
A recent report shared by Nature also noted how AI has been rapidly increasing energy demands —in Ireland, data centers consume 20% of the national electricity— and highlighted the lack of data on energy consumption.
Image by Raph Olazo, from Unsplash
Reddit Sues Anthropic For Scraping Platform Over 100,000 Times
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
Reddit has filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, accusing it of scraping Reddit’s platform more than 100,000 times since July 2024—even after claiming it had stopped doing so in May.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- Reddit says scraped content is essential for training AI like Claude.
- Anthropic faces multiple lawsuits over alleged copyright infringement.
- Reddit previously licensed data to Google for $60 million annually.
The complaint , filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court, calls Anthropic “a late-blooming AI company that bills itself as the white knight of the AI industry,” and alleges that “it is anything but.” Reddit argues that Anthropic’s public image of ethical AI development doesn’t match its actions.
“This case is about the two faces of Anthropic,” the filing reads, accusing the company of ignoring the rules to profit from Reddit content. Anthropic has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
Reddit states that Anthropic used its data without a licensing agreement while violating its public content policy, as reported by The Wall Street Journal . The company stated that it attempted to establish a formal agreement with Anthropic but the company refused to accept the deal while OpenAI and Google had already signed paid licensing agreements.
In a statement to The Verge , Reddit’s chief legal officer Ben Lee stressed the value of the platform’s user-generated discussions: “Reddit’s humanity is uniquely valuable in a world flattened by AI. Now more than ever, people are seeking authentic human-to-human conversation.”
“Reddit hosts nearly 20 years of rich, human discussion on virtually every topic imaginable,” Lee added. “These conversations don’t happen anywhere else—and they’re central to training language models like Claude.”
The lawsuit follows Reddit’s February 2024 deal with Google to license its data for AI training, reportedly worth $60 million a year. The platform has made it clear it wants companies to pay for access to its content, as reported by The Verge.
The case highlights a growing wave of legal challenges against AI firms accused of scraping content without compensation or consent.
Additionally, Reddit has also entered the AI race with its own AI product, Reddit Answers , which uses the platform’s massive archive of human conversations to respond to user queries. The lawsuit against Anthropic not only seeks accountability but also reflects the broader competitive struggle to dominate the future of artificial intelligence.
The rush of companies to develop more intelligent models has led to licensing disputes which expose a fundamental struggle for control over AI data and potential dominance in the AI market.
