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Microsoft has decided to reduce the environmental impact of its artificial intelligence by turning to a seemingly unlikely resource: human and agricultural waste. The company has signed a contract with the American company Vaulted Deep, under which it will pump nearly five million tons of carbon underground over 12 years in the form of organic sludge composed of sewage, manure, and food waste.
The essence of the method is simple and a little futuristic. All this uninviting waste is mixed into a single cocktail and pumped to a depth of about a mile into special underground formations, completely isolated from the surface. For every ton of carbon safely stashed in the depths, Microsoft receives carbon credits, which help improve reporting and enhance the image of a company that develops energy-intensive technologies.
The technology, already in use in places like Los Angeles and Derby, Kansas, is not based on new inventions, but on the reuse of existing infrastructure originally designed for industrial waste disposal. Vaulted Deep leverages this expertise to remove organic materials that would normally end up in landfills, rivers, or the atmosphere as methane.
In recent years, Microsoft has invested heavily in carbon removal technologies. From 2020 to 2024, the company emitted over 75 million metric tons of CO₂ and now aims not only to reduce emissions but also to achieve negative carbon emissions by 2030. The plan for 2050 is to fully offset all the environmental damage accumulated since its founding. Microsoft has already purchased over 83 million tons of carbon credits, becoming one of the largest buyers in this market.
Vaulted Deep differs significantly from other popular approaches, such as reforestation or direct carbon capture. These solutions are either time-consuming or require new capabilities. Vaulted Deep uses existing infrastructure and addresses two issues simultaneously: waste management and emissions reduction.
Microsoft emphasizes that this approach also avoids public backlash against more traditional methods, such as fertilizing fields with organic residues. According to a company representative, such practices often cause water pollution and other problems, while underground disposal makes the waste invisible and safe.
However, not everyone believes the strategy is ideal. Environmentalists warn of the potential risks to groundwater and the difficulty of long-term monitoring of such wells. Nonetheless, the alliance between the tech giant and sewage sludge producers appears to be a step toward reconciling ecology and economics, albeit unromantically.
The need for such solutions is becoming increasingly urgent, as artificial intelligence is accelerating global warming and large-scale projects like Stargate require gigawatts of energy to operate modern data centers.
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