"While companies are actively investing in or purchasing carbon credits, the figure suggests a possible lack of credit supply in the carbon market to meet the technology companies’ needs," Ren added.
"Everyone is talking about the lack of physical goods and infrastructure like power, but there may also be a lack of virtual goods – carbon credits."
Development proposals for datacentres are growing larger and more frequent as market interest in generative tools and underlying foundational models continues to expand.
Property consultancy firm JLL projects that approximately 1,200 datacentres will be constructed worldwide between the present period and 2030, with demand heavily driven by artificial intelligence.
The rapid expansion of infrastructure is linked to heavy projections for global electricity consumption.
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The Uptime Institute estimates that major datacentre developments announced last year will account for 1.3 percent of global electricity consumption, effectively doubling current sector demand, with the majority originating from American projects.
