Big Tech’s dream of advancing AI is coming with a huge, often overlooked cost: electricity. The amount of power that companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple use to run their data centers is staggering—so much so that their energy consumption is now on par with entire countries.
A recent graphic from Visual Capitalist compares the electricity use of these tech giants in 2023 with that of some nations. The numbers are shocking. Both Google and Microsoft each consumed 24 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in a year. To put that in perspective, that’s more power than what countries like Jordan, with a population of 11 million people, or Ghana, with 34 million people, use.
This enormous energy consumption is largely driven by the need to power and cool massive data centers that are crucial for the operations of these companies. These data centers aren’t just storing files or processing emails anymore—they’re doing heavy-duty work like training AI models, which demands even more power.
Google reported that its data center electricity use increased by 17% in 2023 alone, and they expect this trend to continue. In fact, Google estimates that its data centers account for a whopping 10% of global data center electricity use.
Microsoft’s electricity usage tells a similar story. Back in 2020, Microsoft used 11 TWh of electricity, but by 2023, that number had doubled to 24 TWh. This dramatic increase coincides with the company’s push into generative AI, where it’s now a leader alongside Google.
Even Meta and Apple, which got into the AI game a bit later, are starting to catch up in their electricity usage. Meta, in particular, is quickly ramping up its energy consumption as it builds out its AI capabilities.
As AI continues to grow, so does its energy footprint, and the power required to keep these tech giants at the cutting edge is already at a scale that rivals entire nations. This raises important questions about the sustainability of this energy use and its impact on the world.
