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Microsoft and Royal Bank of Canada committed to buy 10,000 metric tons of carbon removals over 10 years from Deep Sky’s Alberta project. The site has since reportedly begun operating and producing certified credits, but the combined commitment averages about 1,000 tonnes a year—an early market signal, not a meaningful offset for the emissions of a growing cloud and AI business.
What Microsoft and RBC committed to buy
In November 2024, Microsoft and Royal Bank of Canada agreed to pre-purchase a combined 10,000 metric tons of carbon removals from Deep Sky Alpha, a project in Innisfail, Alberta. Deep Sky later said deliveries under the agreement run through 2034. The purchase is a commitment to future supply; it does not mean 10,000 tonnes had already been removed when the deal was announced. TechCrunch reported the original agreement, and Deep Sky described the delivery horizon.
- Purchase commitment: A buyer agrees to pay for a specified quantity under agreed terms, often before all the removals have occurred.
- Delivered credit: A unit issued to a buyer after the applicable project and verification process. Delivery is not the same as a company having already used it in its emissions accounting.
- Verified removal: Carbon dioxide taken from the atmosphere and measured under a defined method. The net climate benefit depends on emissions from energy, materials, transport and storage operations as well as the amount captured.
- Offset: A claim that a credit counterbalances emissions elsewhere. Whether and how a company can make that claim depends on its accounting rules and the quality and timing of the credit. The deal’s size alone does not establish that it offsets Microsoft’s AI emissions.
Deep Sky and Isometric announced in June 2026 that the project had produced certified direct-air-capture removal credits, with supply beginning to Microsoft and RBC. That is a meaningful step beyond the 2024 promise, but the public information cited here does not establish how many tonnes had been delivered specifically to Microsoft by August 18, 2026, how the combined volume is split between the buyers, or the price paid. Deep Sky’s announcement describes the credits and initial deliveries.
What Deep Sky Alpha’s “bake-off” is designed to do
Deep Sky Alpha is a shared test and demonstration site rather than a conventional plant built around one capture vendor. Multiple technology providers can operate at one location and use shared project infrastructure, including site access, electricity, carbon-dioxide transport and injection arrangements, permitting and a common geological-storage destination. The idea is to let developers concentrate on their capture systems without each having to build a separate full-scale facility and storage network. Carbon Removal Canada’s project tracker lists the project in Innisfail, Alberta, with initial capacity of about 3,000 tonnes per year.
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The tracker associates the project with Airhive, Mission Zero, Skyrenu Technologies, SkyTree, Phlair, GE Vernova, Airbus and DACMA. These names should not all be read as equivalent: the tracker labels organizations as partners or suppliers, while earlier coverage described eight startups. The available information does not establish that each organization has a deployed capture system at the site or that all are being tested on identical terms. Nor does a multi-vendor site, by itself, establish an apples-to-apples comparison or identify a winning technology.
How direct air capture works—and what it does not prove
Direct air capture (DAC) uses equipment and materials to pull carbon dioxide out of ambient air. That differs from capturing CO₂ at a smokestack: DAC targets carbon already dispersed in the atmosphere, so it can in principle address historical or residual emissions from sources that cannot be eliminated completely. If the captured CO₂ is securely stored for a long period, the process can produce a durable removal.
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Air contains relatively little CO₂, so extracting it takes energy. A facility’s climate benefit depends on the electricity and heat it uses, the manufacture and replacement of materials, transport, and the storage process—not just its gross capture figure. If the energy supply is emissions-intensive, the net removal can be much smaller than the amount captured. Early pilot performance also cannot establish that a system will be affordable, reliable or efficient at much larger scale.
Certification matters because buyers need defined measurement and storage rules. It does not, on its own, show that a project is cheap, scalable or large enough to counterbalance the emissions of a major technology company. The cited project updates do not provide a public, standardized ranking of the participating systems, or enough operating data to compare their net removal, energy intensity, uptime, capture rates and costs.
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What the numbers say about the deal’s scale
| Figure | What it means |
|---|---|
| 10,000 metric tons over 10 years | Combined Microsoft and RBC purchase commitment, not a record of 10,000 tonnes already removed in 2024. Deep Sky said deliveries run through 2034. TechCrunch; Deep Sky. |
| About 1,000 tonnes per year | Simple average of the combined 10,000-tonne commitment over 10 years; actual delivery timing need not be even. Calculated from the agreement’s stated volume and term. |
| About 3,000 tonnes per year | Deep Sky Alpha’s initial capacity as listed by Carbon Removal Canada’s project tracker, not a claim about actual annual output. Project tracker. |
| Nearly 22 million metric tons | Microsoft reported contracting this much carbon removal in fiscal 2024. It is contracted volume, not necessarily delivered, certified or permanently stored tonnes. Microsoft’s 2025 Environmental Sustainability Report. |
The Deep Sky commitment is small relative to Microsoft’s wider contracted-removal portfolio and the emissions footprint of its operations. It may help create demand for an emerging removal market and give the project an early buyer. Without a comparable, same-year emissions figure and boundary, it would be misleading to turn these figures into a precise percentage of Microsoft’s emissions.
Why Microsoft is buying removals
Microsoft has a stated goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030. Its climate strategy includes reducing operational emissions, procuring renewable or carbon-free electricity, improving datacenter efficiency, addressing emissions embodied in construction and hardware, and purchasing carbon removal. The company’s 2025 sustainability report says it had contracted nearly 22 million metric tons of removals in fiscal 2024; that is a portfolio commitment, not proof that the same volume had already been removed.
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Microsoft’s emissions challenge has become harder as it expands datacenters and AI infrastructure. The original 2024 coverage said emissions had risen more than 40% from the company’s 2020 baseline. Separately, Tom’s Hardware reported a 25% year-over-year increase in fiscal 2025, primarily associated with datacenter expansion, based on Microsoft’s later sustainability reporting. These are different measures and periods, not interchangeable figures. TechCrunch’s 2024 coverage; Tom’s Hardware’s account of the later report.
Company-wide emissions are not the same as a separately measured “AI emissions” total. Datacenter expansion can contribute to the challenge, but the footprint also includes construction materials, servers and other hardware, electricity supply, backup generation, cooling and supply chains. Microsoft’s own sustainability materials discuss measures such as datacenter design, cooling, renewable procurement and embodied-carbon reduction alongside carbon removal.
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How to judge whether the project delivers real climate value
A useful assessment goes beyond whether a credit has been issued. Buyers and readers should look for the following evidence:
- Net removal: How many tonnes remain after accounting for electricity, heat, construction, chemicals, transport and storage?
- Energy source: What powers the facility, and how is the electricity’s carbon intensity accounted for? Low-carbon power can materially change the climate result.
- Storage and durability: Where is the CO₂ injected, how is it monitored, and who is responsible if monitoring identifies a problem? Long-term storage claims depend on the method and oversight, not just the word “permanent.”
- Measurement and verification: What methodology governs the credit, what data are public, and what does independent verification cover?
- Additionality: Did the purchase help cause or accelerate the project, or would the same removals have happened anyway?
- Scalability and cost: Can the system sustain operation at much larger volumes, and at what delivered price? A demonstration site does not establish commercial economics.
- Local effects: What are the project’s land, water and electricity needs, and how are pipelines, wells, storage rights, regulation and community engagement handled?
The public updates cited here do not state the Microsoft/RBC deal’s delivered price per tonne, the project’s net removal after operating emissions, a vendor-by-vendor performance ranking, or a complete set of operating and storage-monitoring results. Those gaps make it too early to judge the project as a proven commercial-scale climate solution.
What this means for companies considering carbon-removal contracts
Durable removals are not interchangeable with avoided emissions or renewable-energy purchases. A buyer considering a future-delivery agreement should examine the specific delivery schedule, verification standard, net-removal method, energy source, storage location and monitoring plan, as well as the terms for delay, cancellation or non-delivery. The distinction between an advance commitment and an already issued credit should be explicit in both procurement records and public claims.
For companies, the strongest role for DAC is to address residual emissions after feasible reductions, not to replace measures that reduce emissions at the source. Better computing efficiency, lower-carbon electricity, careful datacenter siting, lower embodied carbon, longer hardware lifetimes and lower-carbon supply chains can reduce the amount of pollution that removal projects would otherwise need to counterbalance. Microsoft’s Deep Sky purchase is best understood as an early procurement and market-development bet whose eventual value depends on verified net removals and performance at scale.
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