this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2024
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681
Google and Microsoft consume more power than some countries (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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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[–] [email protected] 150 points 1 month 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

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Lots of people were just yelling the grid can't handle more load like for charging cars while Google adds a country worth of power use with AI.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Google builds entire datacenters with their own transformers and power lines, if not their own powerplants. You plug these datacenters directly into the high voltage networks that don't have big capacity problems.

The low voltage grids in residential areas on the other hand were build as cheap as possible, so increasing the load by 20% is already too much for most of them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

The low voltage grids in ~~residential areas~~ suburbs on the other hand were build as cheap as possible, so increasing the load by 20% is already too much for most of them.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Don't forget to set you AC to 80 because the grid can't handle the load lol. That's exactly why this info is important, ecological solutions are somehow always trusted on individuals when the vast majority of the issue lies with corporations.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Those corporations are serving users, they wouldn't need all that power if billions weren't using their services

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

And I'm using my AC, we're both using power. How many times has the government told one of these companies to use less power because the grid can't handle the strain their servers put on it?

And it's not like these companies aren't herding people toward these cloud services. A few weeks ago my Google Cloud storage was maxed out so I wanted to delete some photos/videos off their cloud while keeping them on my phone. Legit couldn't figure out how to do that and just ended up deleting stuff permanently.

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