By 
As the tech industry continues to grow, so does its hunger for energy. The latest report by BestBrokers is revealing how much electricity the world’s leading tech companies consumed in their most recent fiscal years.
RELATED: Report reveals Google consumes 56 times more electricity per year than ChatGPT
The team at BestBrokers combed through the latest environmental reports of the ten largest tech companies by market cap that publicly disclose their energy use figures. BestBrokers examined how much electricity these firms used to power their data centres, global offices, and production facilities last year. The report also made some comparisons to illustrate just how massive this energy consumption really is, such as how many electric vehicles could be charged or how many U.S. homes could be powered for an entire year with that same amount of power.
According to the findings, Google used 25.3 terawatt-hours of electricity in its last fiscal 2023 year. To put this in perspective, that’s enough to charge a mind-blowing 349.6 million electric vehicles, each with an average battery capacity of 72.4 kilowatt-hours. To put it another way, that’s enough energy to charge every single one of the 3.3 million EVs on U.S. roads by the end of 2023 a whopping 106 times. Microsoft, in comparison, could charge 325.6 million electric cars with its annual electricity consumption of 23.6 terawatt-hours.
Here are a few key takeaways from our report:
- South Korea’s Samsung consumed nearly 30 terawatt-hours of electricity in its fiscal 2023 year, more than any other tech firm we analysed. That’s enough to fully charge a staggering 413.8 million electric vehicles. To give another comparison, it could also power 2.8 million U.S. homes for an entire year based on the average American household’s energy consumption of about 10,585 kilowatt-hours per year.
- American tech giant Google isn’t far behind. It could charge 349.6 EVs or every electric vehicle in the United States about 106 times based on the company’s electricity consumption of 25.3 terawatt-hours last year. On the household front, Google could supply nearly 2.4 million U.S. homes with electricity for a year, which represents around 1.82% of the 131.4 million homes currently in the United States.
- Taiwan’s TSMC, on the other hand, consumed 24.8 terawatt hours across its business sites in 2023. With that amount of energy, the world’s third-largest chip manufacturer could charge 342.2 million electric cars. Alternatively, TSMC’s electricity consumption could keep the lights on for 2.3 million U.S. households for an entire year.
- Meanwhile, Microsoft’s annual electricity consumption reached 23.6 terawatt-hours, which is enough to provide electricity to 2.2 million homes in the United States. Facebook’s parent company Meta closely follows, with energy usage that could power 1.4 million U.S. households. If these companies were to use all of their energy consumption to charge electric vehicles, Microsoft could fully charge 325.6 million EVs, while Meta could charge 211.7 million.
- Apple used around 3.5 terawatt-hours of electricity globally in 2023 for comparison. Although that’s less than what most of the other tech giants on our list consumed in their last fiscal years, it’s still enough to charge 48.2 million EVs or keep 329,428 U.S. homes powered for a year. Even Nvidia which used only 613 gigawatt-hours, could charge 8.5 million EVs. Its electricity consumption could also power 57,875 U.S. households.
- Another interesting finding is that Apple, Nvidia, and Broadcom could pay off their annual electricity bills with less than a single day’s worth of revenue. Apple, for instance, could cover its $456.8 million electricity bill (based on the U.S. average rate for businesses of $0.131 per kilowatt-hour as of June 2024) in just 10 hours based on its profits of over $1 billion per day on average.
To provide further context, the tech giants on our list are consuming more electricity annually than some countries with populations in the millions. For example, Samsung’s electricity consumption of 30 terawatt-hours in its last fiscal year is nearly on par with the annual energy use of entire nations like Ireland (5.2 million people) and Serbia (6.7 million people), both of which consume around 31 terawatt-hours, according to the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration data. Even more remarkably, we identified 131 countries and territories, including Ecuador (28 terawatt-hours/year, 18.3 million people) and Slovakia (26 terawatt-hours/year, 5.6 million people), each consuming less electricity per year than Samsung alone.
In our full report, you’ll find detailed calculations, sources, and the complete methodology behind these findings. You’re welcome to use any of the data or graphics provided, but please make sure to include proper attribution by linking back to the original work.
Regards,
