Google and Microsoft's Huge Power Consumption and Their Impact
TapTechNews July 15th news, the power consumption of the data centers of tech giants Google and Microsoft is astonishing. According to the analysis of Michael Thomas, both companies consumed 24 terawatt-hours of power in 2023, exceeding more than 100 countries including Iceland, Ghana, and Tunisia. Such a huge energy consumption means a huge environmental impact, but it is worth noting that the revenue-generating ability of Google and Microsoft is also stronger than that of many countries. In addition, these tech companies are also the leaders in the adoption of renewable energy in the industry.
Further analysis shows that the power consumption of Google and Microsoft in 2023 is equivalent to the power usage of the whole country of Azerbaijan (10.14 million people), and is higher than that of countries such as Iceland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic and Tunisia (19 terawatt-hours) as well as Jordan (20 terawatt-hours). Of course, some countries consume more power than these two tech giants. For example, Slovakia with a population of only 5.4 million has a power consumption of 26 terawatt-hours.
This comparison highlights the huge demand for energy of high-tech companies. The data centers operated by Google and Microsoft will cause a considerable degree of environmental impact. However, if we compare the energy consumption of Google and Microsoft with their revenue, what will the situation be like?
According to the data released by Google itself, its revenue in 2023 was 305.6 billion US dollars, and the economic impact including Google Search, Google Cloud and YouTube and other tools is about 739 billion US dollars. Microsoft's revenue in 2023 was 211.9 billion US dollars. Considering that the vast majority of users worldwide are using Microsoft's Windows operating system and office software, and there are also a large number of online applications running on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform, the economic impact of Microsoft products may be as high as tens of thousands of billion US dollars.
Compared with countries with similar power consumption, Azerbaijan's GDP in 2023 is about 78 billion US dollars, Slovakia is about 127 billion US dollars, and Iceland is only about 30 billion US dollars. The economic output of Google and Microsoft far exceeds the GDP of these countries, highlighting the contrast between the huge financial scale of these two tech giants and their astonishing power consumption.
Although the huge power consumption of Google and Microsoft has triggered discussions about the sustainable development and the adoption of renewable energy in the tech industry, it is worthy of affirmation that these two companies are also leading the industry in the transformation to renewable energy.
In fact, Google has been in a leading position in the use of renewable energy. The company has achieved carbon neutrality since 2007 and plans to use carbon-free energy for all its data centers around the clock by 2030. In 2023, Google announced to continue investing in renewable energy projects and expand its portfolio of various renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy.
According to TapTechNews, Microsoft is committed to achieving carbon negative emissions by 2030, which means they plan to remove m ore carbon elements than they emit. The company has also set goals to achieve zero waste production and positive water use by 2030. In 2023, Microsoft expanded its portfolio of renewable energy contracts to more than 19.8 gigawatts, covering projects in 21 countries. In addition, Microsoft is also working hard to reduce its direct operating emissions and address indirect emissions issues, especially those related to the construction of new data centers and hardware components.