Google has pledged to stop building artificial intelligence tools (AI) that help oil and gas companies extract fossil fuels around the world, making it the first cloud computing service provider to make the move.
The tech giant has many energy customers who use its Google Cloud platform to host and process their data so that they can run their IT systems through Google's data centers.
The move comes after a Greenpeace report highlighted how oil companies such as Shell, Exxon Mobile and BP are using Google, Microsoft and Amazon servers that use artificial intelligence technology to locate oil and gas extraction from the ground.
These companies use cloud technology to operate artificial intelligence to find and extract more oil and gas wells and reduce production costs.
The Greenpeace report, titled "How can technology companies help achieve great oil profits by destroying the climate?", Said that oil and gas companies have become increasingly dependent on cloud technology to discover oil, and that Google, Amazon and Microsoft contracts with these companies may conflict with their pledges Climate Independent.
Google will not build automated learning algorithms that are designed to help companies find and extract oil, but rather will provide artificial intelligence intended for renewable energy companies.
Greenpeace praised Google’s decision, and Elizabeth Jardim, a prominent activist with the organization, said, “While Google still has old contracts with oil and gas companies and we hope it ends, we welcome Google’s move not to create custom solutions for oil and gas extraction.”
Google is known to be one of the greenest big tech companies in the world, unlike other tech giants.
Google supports clean energy
A spokesman for Google told "CNBC" that the company "will not build artificial intelligence algorithms designed to facilitate exploration in the oil and gas industry."
He added that Google Cloud obtained nearly $ 65 million from oil and gas companies in 2019, adding that this figure represents less than 1% of the total revenue of Google Cloud, which is an infrastructure for public services companies, and a platform for data processing, so we have companies "Many industries use this platform to run their IT systems on the cloud, but we will not build, for example, dedicated algorithms to facilitate extraction in the oil and gas industry."
The oil and gas industry is expected to spend $ 1.3 billion on cloud services in 2020, according to HG Insights data.
The spokesman pointed to Google's desire to invest in renewable energy, saying, "We are attracted to renewable energy providers, who know the benefits of cloud technology in enhancing their goals, and we are building models of algorithms dedicated to artificial intelligence in cooperation with many renewable energy companies."
The decision to move away from the oil and gas exploration giant comes after Daryl Willis, head of the Google Cloud Oil and Energy Business Unit, who was appointed in 2018, left.
Willis left Google in 2019 to become vice president of Microsoft's energy industry, and the research giant no longer has a dedicated oil and gas business unit.
Google signed a deal with Schlumberger, the international oilfield services company, in 2019, selling Google programs to other oil and gas companies.