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Microsoft and Google's electricity consumption surpasses the power usage of over 100 countries
By Kevin Okemwa,
1 day ago
What you need to know
Google and Microsoft each consumed 24 TWh of electricity in 2023.
They are among the top tech firms championing renewable energy as a plausible alternative power source for their sophisticated advances.
Both companies have data centers that consume power to keep their cloud services running, including their AI efforts.
Generative AI is taking the world by storm, and its impact is evident across all sectors, including medicine, education, music, computing, and more. Debatably, we're well past the AI-powered chatbots and image generation tools phase, and this is where things are about to get interesting.
In 2023, Microsoft and Google consumed 48 TWh of electricity (24 TWh each). According to a detailed analysis by Michael Thomas , this surpasses the power consumption of over 100 nations, including Ghana, Tunisia, and more (via Tom's Hardware ).
Some of the downsides to advancements in the AI landscape include the degradation of the environment, however, Google and Microsoft are big on renewable energy and have been championing the campaign while seeking alternative power sources. Microsoft and Google's power needs can comfortably meet Azerbaijan's electricity consumption. For context, Azerbaijan has a population of 10.14 million and an estimated GDP of $78.7 billion.
Microsoft and Google have data centers to keep their cloud services running, including cloud storage and computing. The data centers consume a lot of power and water for cooling. Power consumption is likely to have gotten higher with both companies hopping onto the AI bandwagon face-first.
While nuclear fusion seems like the perfect solution for AI's power needs due to its non-existent impact on the environment, scientists and researchers say it's "too late to deal with the climate crisis" and view fission and renewable energy as better options.
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