In today’s technology landscape, tech giants like Google And Microsoft They are not only leaders in innovation and digital services, but they are also among the largest consumers of electricity. According to an analysis by the environmentalist Michael Thomasauthor of the newsletter Distilledthe 2023 electricity consumption of these two companies has surpassed that of over 100 countries. Both companies have requested about 24 TWh (terawatt hours) of electricity each, a figure that is growing together with the CO emissions2which for Google increased by 48%. The increases are also due to the training of large linguistic models of the respective artificial intelligences. An enormous amount of energy, comparable to the energy needs of countries such as Azerbaijan (Italy, for comparison, stands at 300 TWh). The reason for so much consumption would be due in part to developments related to artificial intelligence.
Google and Microsoft’s electricity consumption analysis
The data present in theanalysis by Michael Thomas were derived from theIEA (US Energy Information Administration), as well as from Google’s environmental report and Microsoft’s report. Although he incorrectly rounded the data in the documents in question, indicating total consumption of 24 TWh for both Google and Microsoft, the information collected by Thomas is thought-provoking. In the graph shown by the environmentalist on X, in fact, it is clear that the energy consumption of Google and Microsoft far exceeds that of nations such as Tunisia, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Iceland, and Jordan and is practically the same as that of Azerbaijan and Libya.
Analyzing the official environmental reports published by Google and Microsoft (already linked in the previous lines, as well as in the article’s sources), it can be noted how the Mountain View company has actually consumed over 25 TWh (double what was consumed in 2019) while the Redmond giant consumed just over 23 TWh (more than double what was consumed in 2020).
The sustainability goals of the two tech giants
These data highlight the ever-increasing energy impact of large technology companies and draw attention to the need for sustainable strategies to manage growing energy demand in a world that is becoming increasingly digital. All of this also raises an important question: What happened to Google and Microsoft’s sustainability goals? At the moment it is difficult to give a precise answer to this question. Certainly, the race to grab the AI podium could significantly slow down the green objectives of the two big tech companies (and probably not only these two). Indeed, if we really want to tell the whole truth, this slowdown has already happened in a certain sense. As reported by the press agency Bloomberg, Google no longer claims to be “carbon neutral” and, according to what was declared by the Wall Street JournalMicrosoft must fight to meet its 2030 sustainability goals.
