Oil and gas companies have been using various types of AI for decades to help find and develop underground resources more efficiently. While tech companies measure their own emissions and that of their supply chain, they don’t tend to measure just how much their tools help to increase fossil fuel production. To get an idea of how AI can affect fossil fuel companies’ emissions, the Alpines used a complex economic model that allows researchers to introduce various factors to test out how they might play out over the broader economy. The modeling found that AI as a productivity enhancer for the fossil fuel industry could help increase global energy-related emissions between 1.2 to 4.8 percent. Fossil fuel companies are increasingly providing power for data centers.