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Google and Microsoft consume more power than some countries (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 4 months ago by lemmee_in@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world

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In 2023, Google and Microsoft each consumed 24 TWh of electricity, surpassing the consumption of over 100 nations, including places like Iceland, Ghana, and Tunisia, according to an analysis by Michael Thomas. While massive energy usage means a substantial environmental impact for these tech giants, it should be noted that Google and Microsoft also generate more money than many countries. Furthermore, companies like Intel, Google, and Microsoft lead renewable energy adoption within the industry.

Detailed analysis reveals that Google's and Microsoft's electricity consumption — 24 TWh in 2023 — equals the power consumption of Azerbaijan (a nation of 10.14 million) and is higher than that of several other countries. For instance, Iceland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, and Tunisia each consumed 19 TWh, while Jordan consumed 20 TWh. Of course, some countries consume more power than Google and Microsoft. For example, Slovakia, a country with 5.4 million inhabitants, consumes 26 TWh.

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[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 150 points 4 months ago (19 children)

I don't see what's surprising here. They provide services for users globally. Not that it's justified, it's just kind of weird that people think global scale computing is light on electricity, apparently

[–] x1gma@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's not surprising per se, but it's something that people should be more aware of. And a lot of this consumption is not providing global services (like the Google search or workspace suite) but the whole AI hype.

I didn't find numbers for Google or Microsoft specifically, but training ChatGPT 4 consumed 50 GWh on its own. The daily estimates for queries are estimated between 1-5 GWh.

Given that the extrapolation is an overestimate and calculating the actual consumption is pretty much impossible, it's still probably a lot of energy wasted for a product that people do not want (e.g. Google AI "search", Bing and Copilot being stuffed into everything).

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

They only do that because they project it to be profitable, i.e. they project demand for it.

It's also ridiculous to claim that people don't want it just because you don't.

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