EU lawmakers want the European Commission to scrap a secrecy clause critics say lets Big Tech hide the energy cost of Europe’s AI boom.
The provision — part of a law governing energy consumption by data centers — was added after lobbying by Microsoft and tech lobby group DigitalEurope, according to an investigation by the journalism outlet Investigate Europe. It classifies energy use by individual facilities as confidential, commercially sensitive information.
In a letter to Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall sent Tuesday, a Greens-heavy coalition of 35 lawmakers urged the EU executive to delete what they called “Microsoft’s amendment.”
The signatories argued that “it is extremely worrying that vital information regarding the environmental impact of data centres is being withheld from the public.”
