Google and Microsoft consume the energy of an entire country

In the course of 2023, Google and Microsoft consumed 24 TWh of electricity, more than what countries like Iceland, Ghana, and Tunisia consume in a year. According to a report conducted by Michael Thomas and published on X, despite the two tech giants using the same amount of energy as Azerbaijan, the high environmental impact of their expenditure is offset by staggering revenues that far exceed those of many countries. While Thomas, as a content creator documenting the effects of climate change, shared the report to highlight how even an immaterial service like the internet can pollute our planet, other media outlets have drawn their swords and shields in defense of Google and Microsoft. As if they needed it, one might add.

Some American media dedicated to the tech world claim that Google and Microsoft consume more than many states, but also make a lot more money. To prove this, they compared the energy expenses of the two companies (24 TWh) with those of countries like Iceland, the Dominican Republic, and Ghana, which in 2023 had an average consumption of 19 TWh, then compared their various revenues. As reported by the same Google, platforms like Google Search, Google Cloud, and YouTube in 2023 were able to contribute $739 billion to the U.S. economy, while Microsoft had revenues of $211 billion. According to financial reports of the mentioned countries, Azerbaijan had a GDP of $78 billion, Iceland $30 billion, and so on. With these data, the media emphasized the large number of "green" initiatives that the two tech companies have launched in recent years - as if to say, «they have also done some good things».

The dual nature of corporations like Microsoft and Google is precisely this: consuming energy without limits, because the world now stands only thanks to the internet, boasting record revenues and then plugging any ethical gaps with pseudo-sustainable projects (we say pseudo because objectively a power like Google can never be truly sustainable) such as renewable energy and zero-carbon policies. Google and Microsoft have implemented strategies to reduce their environmental impact by the end of the decade - by 2030, Google wants to operate completely carbon-free in all data centers, while Microsoft aims to become carbon-negative - yet innovations like artificial intelligence, and more specifically platforms like ChatGPT (which will soon be added to our phones), continue to demonstrate that companies will never be able to implement real changes capable of protecting the little we have left of this planet. After all, it doesn't matter how much you pollute, but how much you can earn and make small "green" investments to silence the nosy.