Use of AI and renewable energy and water

CBA clarifies comments made at the company's annual general meeting about the source of power and water used to support artificial intelligence computing.

Following comments made by CBA's Chair, Paul O'Malley, at the company's annual general meeting in Adelaide on Wednesday 16 October 2024 and in responding to questions from shareholders about the use of renewable energy and water to support the computing power of artificial intelligence (AI), CBA has today provided the following clarification.

CBA's position is that in line with the transition to a net zero emissions economy, electricity generation, including for AI should, over time, transition to lower-emissions technologies. The use by CBA of AI does not presently involve only renewable energy. CBA's 2024 Climate Report notes that CBA purchases the equivalent of 100% renewable electricity for our Australian operations, which include CBA's AI-related energy in its Australian data centres. However, much of CBA's AI compute capacity is provided by third party providers. A number of our computing capacity providers have made commitments to source renewable or low emissions energy. We also seek to minimise water impacts in our operations and report annually on water usage in our commercial and data centre operations.

Additional information

CBA's 2024 Climate Report can be found here. Our approach to managing our operational environmental impacts is on page 38.

Separately, CBA has adopted a principles-based approach to the policies governing the development, deployment and use of AI by the bank including the human, social and environmental aspects. Those principles can be found here.

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Tags

• Artificial intelligence
• On the record