Financial Associated Press, May 24 (editor Shi Zhengcheng) recently, the US stock market has been frequently mentioned.ElectronicbasketballarcadegameLogic of "AI is good for photovoltaic"ElectronicbasketballarcadegameVerified on the other side of the Pacific on Thursday, Google signed agreements with a number of Japanese renewable energy suppliers to purchase clean electricity and build solar power plants dedicated to Google's data centers in order to meet both the power needs of data centers running AI and the 2030 clean energy target.

Google is also another AI company specializing in investing in solar power in Japan after Microsoft and Amazon.

Purchasing exclusive solar power in Japan for the first time

According to reports, Google has signed corporate power purchase contracts with Japan's Clean Energy Link (CEC) and Natural Power (Shizen Energy), which will build solar power plants dedicated to Google's data centers in many parts of Japan.

It is reported that CEC, a joint venture between Buffett Love shares, Itochu, Kansai Electric and other companies, will invest 10 billion yen (about 4 percent) by 2026.Electronicbasketballarcadegame. 6.1 billion yuan), about 800 solar power plants will be built, with a total generating capacity of nearly 70, 000 kilowatts. Natural Power will develop a solar project for Google in the Kanto region, which is expected to be operational in 2027 with a generating capacity of 30,000 kilowatts.

Google's goal is to achieve full access to clean energy for the entire company, including data centers and offices, by 2030. By the end of 2022, Google's carbon-free renewable energy utilization rate was 64%, of which the proportion of clean energy in multiple states in the United States, Finland and Denmark had exceeded 90%, while that in Japan was only 16%.

Coupled with the fact that Google is expected to open new data centers in Hiroshima and Wakayama prefecture, the demand for clean power is bound to increase further.

Pull the demand of the whole industry chain

In addition to Google, Amazon and Microsoft, two other cloud computing giants, have earlier green power layouts.

Amazon is working with Mitsubishi Corporation, CEC and other companies to obtain solar power. At the same time, as an e-commerce giant, Amazon has also laid solar panels on the roof of its local logistics warehouse. Microsoft has signed a power purchase agreement with Natural Power, while a "Microsoft-only" solar power plant began commercial operation in February this year.

However, it is still a question whether these green energy procurement and investment can keep up with the pace of the "AI arms race".

According to a sustainability report released by Microsoft last week, the company's global emissions of Greenhouse Effect in fiscal 2023 were 30 per cent higher than those in 2020. Microsoft President Brad Smith also admitted that for the "carbon emissions moon landing plan" proposed in 2020, if only the expansion of AI and the corresponding electricity demand forecast are taken into account, then the "moon landing distance" is now five times that of 2020.

Smith also said that to achieve environmental goals, the company needs to make significant progress in green steel, green concrete, and reducing carbon emissions from chip manufacturing.

Because of the huge demand for AI, in addition to the existing data centers are at full capacity, the technology giants are also rapidly increasing the construction of new data centers. So far this year, Microsoft has announced new data centers in the United States, Thailand, Indonesia, Spain, Germany and Japan.

Amy Hood, Microsoft's chief financial officer, previously revealed that the company plans to spend more than $50 billion on expanding its data center between July last year and June this year. Investment in data centers is expected to be even higher in the year starting in July.

Smith also said that a very big bottleneck for Microsoft to get more green power is the lack of a transmission network from the generation location to the data center. That is why the company will increase its lobbying efforts to push governments to speed up the pace of power grid construction.