According to data for last year, two global companies consumed more electricity than many countries. Google and Microsoft consumed 48 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity during 2023, 24 each, exceeding consumption in more than 100 countries, new research has found.
At the same time, they are leading technology companies that advocate renewable energy as a sustainable source for their sophisticated innovations.
An analysis by Michael Thomas, shared on the X Network, claims that both Google and Microsoft consumed the same amount of energy as Azerbaijan, whose GDP is estimated at $78.7 billion. Google’s revenue in 2023 was $307.4 billion, and Microsoft’s $211.9 billion.
According to the data, the technological giants consume more energy than Iceland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic and Tunisia, and each of these countries consumes 19 TWh, while Jordan consumed 20 TWh. Libya (25 TWh) and Slovakia (26 TWh) consumed slightly more electricity.
High consumption is also noted by Serbia, which last year consumed 31 TWh.
These companies have data centers that use energy to run theirs cloud services worked, including their artificial intelligence (AI) efforts. Data centers use a lot of energy and water for cooling. Energy consumption has probably increased considering that both companies have completely switched to AI, according to the world media.
As AI develops and becomes more sophisticated, so does the need for more energy, which in many countries still comes in large percentages from the burning of fossil fuels. Artificial intelligence, in order to generate answers, consumes a lot more energy than usual searches on the Internet.
According to the report of the global financial institution „Goldman Sachs“ based in New York, a query to ChatGPT requires almost ten times more electricity than a Google search query. Their analysts estimate that data center electricity demand will increase by 160 percent by 2030, while data centers worldwide currently consume one to two percent of total electricity consumption.
“Goldman Sachs” states that Europe needs over one trillion dollars to prepare its power grid for artificial intelligence.
“Over the past 15 years, European electricity demand has been hit hard by a series of shocks: the global financial crisis, the COVID pandemic and the energy crisis caused by the events in Ukraine. But it has also suffered from a slower-than-expected take-off in electrification and the continued de-industrialisation of the European economy. As a result, since the peak in 2008, electricity demand has cumulatively declined by almost 10 percent,” they state.
Jasna Dragojević
Source: energetskiportal.rs
