For software and devices running locally, sure. Much of what MS does these days is cloud based where the bulk of the electricity is being used in a data center somewhere and the customer isn’t (directly) paying for it.
No matter which way you correctly read the headline, it’s false.
You can either read it as Google and microsoft individually consumed more electricity than these 100 countries did (false, it’s Google and microsoft combined)
OR Google and Microsoft combined consimed more than these 100 countries did total.
and how much of that is energy that’s essentially used to run other companies, by way of their cloud services? I imagine that’d be a pretty substantial amount.
To be fair, that level of centralization in the hands of a for-profit corporation is worrisome too. They’ll lure in small businesses and then enshittify.
They’ll lure in small businesses and then enshittify.
I’m not so sure… These “cloud” services are paid services they make a lot of money from, and it’s a huge industry with a very large number of competitors (practically all major hosting services, and even a lot of smaller ones).
Many countries don’t use a lot of electricity, especially those where the grids are spotty or in poor repair, or the overall population is small. Even without the AI garbage, I’d expect large tech-sector companies to use more energy than many countries.
(In other words, the headline for this was really poorly chosen. “Microsoft and Google pour more electricity into AI than 100+ countries use” might have gotten a bit closer to the actuall point, if it’s actually true.)
Microsoft and Google pour more electricity into AI than 100+ countries use" might have gotten a bit closer to the actuall point, if it’s actually true
From what I can tell, the article is talking about total electrical use, not just AI.
Also probably ignoring the fact that some of their data centers have practically the entire roof covered in solar panels, Microsoft is investing in nuclear energy, etc.
Second law of thermodynamics would like to chime in, even with such a perfect nonexistent power source, waste heat is still an issue… which you can radiate to space, which would take tremendous land use to facilitate…
Or we use that land and capital and effort for solar power, which exists and could power practically everything in our lives, minus AI. Sounds like a win to me.
(Also not to mention the necessity to fire up more fossils for this shit to compensate for the current lack of miracle power for their pipe dreams)
And both of these companies build and purchased more renewable energy sources than all 100+ countries combined. Microsoft has committed to be carbon free by 2030, and while I don’t belive in their commitment, they at least seem to be trying contrary to most nations. They even invested in nuclear plants for their power needs.
You can fault both companies for a lot of different reasons, but in terms of carbon emissions due to power usage, they are better than 99.9% of the countries on that list.
They didn’t build it. They buy from local suppliers, power that could have been used by people and companies already there. Now it’s just a lot more, while a serious part of the power consumption goes into debatable purposes like overhyped AI stuff.
Edit: and fwiw, recently Microsoft themselves announced that they are far from their reduction targets roadmap, so not sure where you got the happy flow news from
Green energy that could go to higher priority sectors like decarborning housing, food production and transportation . Carbon free doesn’t mean no ecological impact, of course it’s better than fossil fuel, but it still a lot of ressources extracted and place taken over nature (which is the first cause of biodiversity loss). So ideally we should only destroy so much for essential needs.
I think all moths have some amount of fur, it’s easy to notice on the base of their wings, just “behind” (below?) the head. Some, like the rosy moth, are almost entirely covered in furs
I think you meant comparing companies, guessing autocorrect got you.
And I disagree, it’s useful, but more useful would be a chart of countries and multi-nationals, with the company usage removed from the country usage, to see it more clearly.
That’s the same timeframe as the one used in the article, and sure, they could have made it explicit again, but implicitly it makes sense because it’s the one that’s useful for a direct comparison.
Turns out, the implicit timeframe that should be clear after reading the article was the right one, and it’s pretty damning for bitcoin as is. So again, I am not sure what point you want to make.
I’m on the side of [email protected] here, since I read the comments before the article. Without the articles’ context I had no idea if this meant all-time usage, per year, or per month.
Since the link is right there though, which says per year, it’s really not a huge deal.
WattHours is a unit of work. If you say that bitcoin uses x amount of Wh it doesn’t say shit about how much it actually consumes. Because you don’t say in what amount of time Bitcoin uses said amount of work, you cannot compare it. I could state, that Bitcoin uses 5 Wh. Which would also be correct.
Its the same as saying, Bob eats 5 apples. Alice eats 2000 apples. Can you compare the two? No, because what I forgot to mention is, that Bon eats 5 apples a week and Alice eats 2000 apples in 3 years. Now i can compare the two.
PoS requires significant staker profits to work, which would create the same inequality as the dollar has. It’s basically dollar bonds but without regulations.
Generative AI is taking the world by storm, and its impact is evident across all sectors, including medicine, education, music, computing, and more.
According to a detailed analysis by Michael Thomas, this surpasses the power consumption of over 100 nations, including Ghana, Tunisia, and more (via Tom’s Hardware).
Some of the downsides to advancements in the AI landscape include the degradation of the environment, however, Google and Microsoft are big on renewable energy and have been championing the campaign while seeking alternative power sources.
Elon Musk claimed we’re on the verge of the biggest technology breakthrough with AI, but there won’t be enough power by 2025.
Sam Altman has been exploring a potential alternative power source for OpenAI’s AI efforts, with nuclear fusion at the top of his list.
While nuclear fusion seems like the perfect solution for AI’s power needs due to its non-existent impact on the environment, scientists and researchers say it’s “too late to deal with the climate crisis” and view fission and renewable energy as better options.
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