By Abdulkadir Gunyol
ISTANBUL (AA) - Google and Microsoft use more electricity than some countries such as Jordan, Iceland, North Korea and Ghana.
According to data compiled from Companies Market Cap, the market cap of 10 technology companies, including Google, Apple and Microsoft, has surpassed China's GDP which is expected at $17.6 trillion in 2023.
Technology company owners continue to lead the list of the richest people with Elon Musk at the top with a fortune of $227 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index data.
Eight of the other top 10 businessmen on the list are running companies in the tech sector.
Electricity consumption by tech firms is growing significantly in direct proportion to their size.
According to data compiled from Visual Capitalist by Anadolu, Google and Microsoft each use 24 terawatt-hours of electricity annually.
That is more than the consumption of countries such as Jordan, with a population of 11 million (20 terawatt-hours), Iceland, with a population of 400,000 (19 terawatt-hours), Ghana, with a population of 34 million (19 terawatt-hours) and North Korea, with a population of 26 million (18 terawatt-hours).
The combined consumption of the two companies is equivalent to 48 terawatt-hours, which means they use more electricity than Nigeria (31 terawatt-hours), whose population stands is 223 million.
Other tech companies on the list, Meta consumes 12 terawatt-hours of electricity, Apple at 2 terawatt-hours, and Nvidia consumes 0.5 terawatt hours.
The enormous energy draw for the big tech firms is due to their massive data centers -- a key part of their operations.
Google said its data center electricity use increased 17% last year and that its data centers accounted for 10% of global data center electricity use.
Microsoft, which has made a big leap forward with developments in artificial intelligence in the last four years, has more than doubled its electricity consumption in four years to 24 terawatt hours.