As a Brit, I’ve been thinking a lot about the climate crisis since last month’s historic heatwave. With many buildings across the UK designed to retain heat, we’re simply not built for 37°C/98.6°F weather. Causes of climate change are numerous, and I know we didn’t get here solely due to the advent of AI, but the steep increase in major players’ energy consumption as a result definitely isn’t helping.
Data analyst Kentan Joshi looked at Google’s latest environmental report and wrote about its recent trends in energy consumption. He said on BlueSky, “Two years ago [the company] flipped from linear to exponential growth, and their climate impact is blowing out, too. A WILD testament to the obscene bloat and waste of GenAI.”
Joshi dives into more detail in a blog post, elaborating, “The company’s total electricity consumption jumped from 31 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024 to 43 TWh in 2025. This is very easily the biggest increase in their electricity consumption ever.”
Though that’s pretty damning all on its own, it’s not just Google that’s seen such a sharp increase in its energy consumption. Over a series of graphs, Joshi compares Google’s power usage to other major players such as Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and even Netflix (it’s worth noting Amazon stopped disclosing its power consumption data around 2022, so Joshi can only estimate). Though all of these companies have seen an increase in power consumption to varying degrees since at least 2023, Google’s uptick remains stark.