Google and Microsoft Now Consume More Electricity than Several Big Countries

The surge in the growth of technology costs too many energy sources.

Image source: Google

The early 2020s are the era where technology dominates the world. Apple is trying to develop a cheaper version of Apple Vision, a new social media platform called “noplace” that has positive potential, and iOS 18 which will come shortly after reviews from Beta 2 and Beta 3. Big companies like Google and Microsoft are also working hard to release more tech inventions.

However, their significant technological investments also affect the earth’s sources, especially electricity. In 2023, both Google and Microsoft used 24 TWh of electricity in 2023, which surpassed the consumption from 100 countries, based on the research.

It seems illogical at first, but Google and Microsoft proved that tech growth can cost many earth sources.

Online, online, everything is ONLINE!

Thanks to the popularity of online services in the mid-2000s, anyone can now communicate with anyone worldwide. Although it was getting better and better as time flew, there was a massive backlash in the early 2020s, when most games became online-only, even if the game itself was focused on a single-player.

To build online services, having passion and dedication is no longer enough; they need servers and databases to ensure the online services are working smoothly. If the online services have a high traffic load, then one big server room may no longer enough. And if the online services are popular worldwide like Google and Microsoft, then they need to cover their services by building many server buildings in each continent, and that will cost enormous electricity sources.

AI techs are power-hungry

AI has many complex source algorithms and codes. Because of this, it requires more energy (electricity and water coolant to prevent overheating) to run AI services, which is 10x higher than simple Google searches. Despite both Google’s and Microsoft’s efforts to replace their energy with renewable sources, these may not be enough due to future population growth.

Do you have any thoughts about the future of Earth and Technology?

Earth and technology are not syncing smoothly. Technology is currently being too wasteful with energy sources. With the massive growth of people and technology, the world may run out of energy sources before the 22nd century or even much earlier. After this, people may abandon technology, and thus, they will go to the primitive era, where hunting foods become essential to survive.