Big Tech’s ambitions in artificial intelligence are driving a massive surge in energy consumption, with major tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple using more electricity than some entire nations.
According to visualcapitalist.com, This growing demand is highlighted by recent comparisons of their 2023 electricity usage to that of various countries, based on data from company reports and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (2022).
Ranking Tech Companies Energy Use vs. Select Countries
Google and Microsoft both consume more electricity (24 TWh) than countries like Jordan (population: 11 million) and Ghana (34 million).
Country/Company Electricity Use (TWh) 2024 Population
Nigeria 32 224M
Ireland 31 5M
Serbia 31 7M
Google 24 N/A
Microsoft 24 N/A
Jordan 20 11M
Iceland 19 394K
Ghana 19 34M
Puerto Rico* 18 3M
Paraguay 17 7M
Croatia 17 4M
Meta 12** N/A
Apple 2 N/A
This highlights the enormous energy draw for these Big Tech companies that maintain massive data centers as a key part of their operations.
In their 2024 Environment report, Google said its data center electricity use grew 17% in 2023, a trend it expects to continue. It further estimated the company’s data centers accounted for 10% of global data center electricity use in 2023.
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And it’s easy to see how AI is playing into this consumption. Training AI models increases data centers’ energy and cooling requirements compared to more traditional data center use, like storing files and apps on the cloud or processing emails.
Tellingly, Microsoft’s electricity use was 11 TWh as recently as 2020 and has doubled to 24 TWh in less than four years. Similarly, Google’s has also doubled to 24 TWh from 11 TWh in 2018.
Both trends coincide with the companies’ generative AI push in which they are both frontrunners.
Meanwhile, tech companies who have had a comparatively later start to the race (Meta and Apple) are further behind in electricity consumption, though Meta seems to be catching up.
