Carbon neutral is a joke. How much carbon did it take to build the machines? Their power comes from renewable energy, but our renewable infrastructure is still being built with oil. Nothing is carbon neutral until we completely transition away from oil. Until then, it's all carbon at the base layer.
We need to get off oil as quickly as possible and use our remaining carbon budget to build the non-carbon infrastructure. Until then it's all just marketing.
Perfect is the enemy of the good. I had the same reflex as you: carbon credits are just a modern form of indulgences but they also finance carbon reduction projects that wouldn’t get built / researched. So it’s still a positive contribution. If you click the link in their article there’s a blog post with some more info about their carbon credit purchase strategy. And it seems reasonable. Not perfect. But a step in the right direction.
We need to get off oil as quickly as possible and use our remaining carbon budget to build the non-carbon infrastructure. Until then it's all just marketing.