'A wild testament to the obscene bloat and waste of GenAI': Google's electricity consumption is exponentially increasing

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 to...