Google deletes its net-zero promise

PLUS: Decart's real-time video AI and Anthropic walls off China

Author

Gen AI Art
September 05, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Together with

Google has quietly walked back its high-profile 2030 net-zero commitment, scrubbing the pledge from its sustainability website. The move highlights the immense energy requirements of its expanding AI operations, which are proving too challenging for its original green timeline.

This decision puts the direct conflict between the tech industry’s green ambitions and the enormous power required for the AI boom into sharp focus. As electricity consumption for AI continues to soar, will other tech giants be forced to confront the same reality?

Today in AI:

  • Google deletes its 2030 net-zero pledge

  • Decart’s real-time interactive video AI

  • Anthropic blocks access for Chinese-owned firms

PRESENTED BY THE MORNING BREW

Trusted by millions. Actually enjoyed by them too.

Most business news feels like homework. Morning Brew feels like a cheat sheet. Quick hits on business, tech, and finance—sharp enough to make sense, snappy enough to make you smile.

Try the newsletter for free and see why it’s the go-to for over 4 million professionals every morning.

What’s new? Google has quietly scrubbed its prominent 2030 net-zero pledge from its sustainability website, acknowledging that the explosive growth of its AI operations makes the goal incredibly challenging to meet.

What matters?

  • The energy demand from AI is immense, with Google's own electricity consumption jumping a 26% increase in 2024 to 32.2 terawatt-hours—nearly as much as the entire country of Ireland.

  • This reflects a global trend, as the race to build AI-ready data centers is projected to require an immense investment of $6.7 trillion worldwide by 2030.

  • Despite the backpedal on its public pledge, Google is still making deals for clean power, recently signing one of the largest significant clean energy deals ever for hydropower.

Why it matters?

This move highlights the direct conflict between Big Tech's green ambitions and the enormous energy required to power the current AI boom. It pressures the entire industry to confront the true environmental cost of scaling artificial intelligence and pioneer more sustainable solutions.

What’s new? A startup named Decart has unveiled Mirage, a real-time AI video model that can transform video streams from webcams or games with just 40 milliseconds of latency, opening the door for a new generation of interactive entertainment.

What matters?

  • Unlike tools that generate entire clips, Mirage works frame-by-frame using "next frame prediction," achieving its ultra-low 40-millisecond delay that makes real-time interaction possible.

  • The technology is already being used to create live mods for games like Minecraft and GTA V, and was demonstrated transforming a live video call into a wizard duel on the Every podcast.

  • Decart’s approach focuses on transforming existing video streams, distinguishing it from "World Models" like Google's Genie which generate entire 3D environments from scratch.

Why it matters?

This technology lowers the barrier for creating high-quality, interactive visual experiences in real-time. It suggests a future where developers can use AI as a "skin" over simple logic, changing how games, video calls, and other digital content are made and experienced.

PRESENTED BY AI REPORT

AI You’ll Actually Understand

Cut through the noise. The AI Report makes AI clear, practical, and useful—without needing a technical background.

Join 400,000+ professionals mastering AI in minutes a day.

Stay informed. Stay ahead.

No fluff—just results.

What’s new? Citing national security concerns, Anthropic is updating its terms to prohibit use of its services by any company majority-owned or controlled by entities from adversarial nations like China, regardless of where the company operates.

What matters?

  • The policy change aims to close a loophole where companies from restricted regions access Anthropic's models through foreign subsidiaries, creating national security risks.

  • The ban specifically targets companies that are more than 50% owned by entities headquartered in unsupported regions, adding a clear, enforceable ownership test to its terms of service.

  • This move aligns with Anthropic's broader policy advocacy, which includes pushing for strong export controls and rigorously evaluating AI models for capabilities that could be exploited by US adversaries.

Why it matters?

This decision establishes a firm security-focused boundary for AI access that could influence other major AI labs to adopt similar restrictions. It also highlights a significant trend where geopolitical strategy is becoming a key factor in the global deployment of advanced AI.

Everything else in AI

Google dodged a forced sale of its Chrome browser, with a federal judge citing the competitive threat from AI search as a key reason to reject the DOJ’s antitrust remedy.

Apple struck a deal to test a custom Google Gemini model to power new web search capabilities within its upcoming AI-upgraded Siri.

OpenAI acquired A/B testing and product analytics company Statsig, whose founder will now serve as OpenAI’s new CTO of Applications.

Anthropic raised a massive $13B Series F round, rocketing its valuation to $183B and underscoring the intense capital investment in top AI labs.

PRESENTED BY MASTERS IN MARKETING

How 1,500+ Marketers Are Using AI to Move Faster in 2025

Is your team using AI like the leaders—or still stuck experimenting?

Masters in Marketing’s AI Trends Report breaks down how top marketers are using tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Breeze to scale content, personalize outreach, and drive real results.

Inside the report, you’ll discover:

  • What AI use cases are delivering the strongest ROI today

  • How high-performing teams are integrating AI into workflows

  • The biggest blockers slowing others down—and how to avoid them

  • A 2025 action plan to upgrade your own AI strategy

Download the report. Free when you subscribe to the Masters in Marketing newsletter.

Learn what’s working now, and what’s next.

Essential AI Guides - Reading List:

Your opinion matters!

Work with us

Reach 100k+ engaged Tech Professionals, Engineers, Managers and decision makers. Join brands like MorningBrew, HubSpot, Prezi, Nike, Ahref, Roku, 1440, Superhuman, and others in showcasing your product to our audience. Get in touch now →