Google And Microsoft Use More Electricity Than Over 100 Countries
Microsoft and Google, the two biggest technology companies, now consume more electricity than over 100 countries.
According to a report, Google and Microsoft both consumed 24 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023, more than the yearly consumption of over 100 countries.
According to a study, Google and Microsoft used as much energy as is used by Azerbaijan, which has an GDP of $78.7 billion. In perspective, Google’s annual revenue in 2023 came in at $307 billion, and Microsoft pulled in $211 billion in the same timeframe.
These certainly are large amounts of energy usage, indicative of the enormous scale these companies operate on.
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By way of comparison, countries like Iceland, Ghana, and Tunisia each use 19 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, with Jordan consuming 20 terawatt-hours.
Libya consumes a bit more with 25 terawatt-hours, and Slovakia uses a little over 26 terawatt-hours.
Comparing these companies’ electricity consumption with that of various countries gives an idea about the huge energy demands of mega-corporations.
The data centers of these companies, apart from environmental pollution, increased manifold electricity consumption with the invention of Artificial Intelligence technology.
Both these companies have pledged to run a clean energy-powered future by the end of this decade and promised to continue investing in it.
Research also shows that tech companies not only consume electricity at high levels but also their data centers need massive energy to be run continuously. It requires electricity to run and cool the data centers, and training and running of Artificial intelligence algorithms consume huge amounts of power which becomes an additional requirement for these companies.