Tech Giants Consumed 2,500 Times More Electricity Than The Entire Nigeria In 2022 – Report

A recent report from JPMorgan Chase has unveiled staggering statistics indicating that major global technology companies like Alphabet, Amazon’s AWS, Meta, and Microsoft consumed approximately 90 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2022.

Naija News reports that this figure is around 2,500 times the 36 gigawatt-hours generated by Nigeria, shedding light on the vast disparities in energy consumption and infrastructure between global tech giants and Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.

The report, discussed at a conference in Abuja, contrasts sharply with Nigeria’s ongoing struggles with an unstable power supply, exacerbated by an aging infrastructure that often results in frequent national grid collapses.

The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics notes that the country experienced 46 nationwide blackouts from 2017 to 2023 due to these infrastructural deficiencies.

These global tech companies are advancing rapidly. Their energy consumption is expected to double by 2026 as the demand for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency computations grows.

“The big techs were said to have collectively invested $40 billion between January and March, most of it in data centers to deal with growing artificial intelligence workloads,” reported the Economic Times.

In contrast, Nigeria faces severe challenges. The Nigerian power grid’s reliability issues have compelled an estimated 40% of electricity consumption to depend on backup generators.

Following the recent removal of electricity subsidies for Band A customers, which raised the tariff to N206 per kilowatt-hour, there have been widespread protests across Nigeria.

Citizens are demanding better power supply conditions before any tariff adjustments.