Microsoft has inked a 12-year deal with US-based startup Vaulted Deep to purchase and cover up 4.9 million metric tonnes of organic waste. Worth $1.7 billion, the transaction is designed to address the increasing carbon footprint associated with the company’s growing artificial intelligence business.
The waste consists of human sewage, manure, paper sludge, food waste, and other carbon-rich byproducts from factories. None of these materials will be recycled. Instead, they will be buried nearly 5,000 feet underground, where decomposition ceases and methane and carbon dioxide are contained, away from the atmosphere.
The decision is part of Microsoft’s 2030 goal to become carbon negative. With AI-powered tools such as Copilot and ChatGPT, Microsoft's energy and water usage has increased, resulting in a carbon footprint of over 75 million tonnes between 2020 and 2024.
To counteract that increase, Microsoft is investing in direct carbon removal rather than depending on offsets that avoid future emissions. Vaulted Deep’s approach meets the criteria because it sequesters current carbon permanently and quantifiably.
“This is long-term, verifiable removal, not a temporary offset,” stated Brian Marrs, Microsoft’s senior director for energy and carbon removal.
Vaulted Deep, established in 2023, specializes in retrieving waste that is too dirty or hazardous to recycle and disposing of it in deep geologic layers. The firm employs oilwell-type drilling techniques to inject bioslurry into rock formations beneath the earth, which blocks the release of methane and CO₂.
The process is considered both low-tech and expandable. Existing prices stand at around $150 per tonne, a fraction of the cost of direct air capture technologies, which cost more than $600 per tonne.
The firm already processes around 20% of Los Angeles’ biosludge and has opened a new facility in Kansas that will sequester 50,000 tonnes of carbon annually at full capacity.
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This deal contributes to Microsoft’s expanding list of carbon removal initiatives, including tree planting in Panama and waste capture in Norway. It also represents a transition toward physical, long-term carbon strategies.
Although some have criticized the actual impact of offsets on the real world, Microsoft’s entry into literal waste burial indicates that it is willing to finance out-of-the-box solutions.
For Vaulted Deep, the transaction represents a turning point. “It’s a green light to build more sites and invest in scale,” said CEO Julia Reichelstein.
Microsoft asserts that the emphasis is not simply on emissions reduction, but instead on their outright elimination, something it feels is imperative to achieve its 2050 target of erasing all past emissions since 1975.