Jeremy Hsu, writing for Ars Technica:

Google reported that its annual electricity consumption rose by 37 percent in 2025—the largest increase in the company’s history as Silicon Valley’s AI data center buildout continues. But the tech giant says it kept operational carbon emissions down by continuing to purchase massive amounts of clean energy.

The company’s latest sustainability report acknowledges that Google’s total electricity usage has increased by more than 250 percent since 2019, which the company attributed to ongoing growth in Google Cloud, YouTube video streaming, and data center construction and operations supporting various AI products and services. The unprecedented 37 percent annual increase is part of an ongoing trend, given how Google’s total electricity consumption also grew by 27 percent in 2024.

Absolutely wild to think about how much more energy they will be consuming by this time next year. This one passage comparing their usage to entire countries is what really floored me though:

As the bulk of electricity usage, Google’s data centers consumed more than 42 million megawatt-hours of electricity in 2025 compared to 30.6 million megawatt-hours of electricity in 2024. That means Google’s data center energy usage rivals the electricity consumption of entire countries such as New Zealand, Denmark, and Nigeria. More self-reported details from Google are available in the full sustainability report, including water consumption numbers for various data center campuses.

Meanwhile, Mayor Mamdani is asking us to limit A/C to 78° due to being worried about stress on the electric grid.