Is electricity the soul of all knowledge today?
Is electricity the soul of all knowledge today?
I wonder if electricity is the soul of all knowledge today, mankind at all? Almost all knowledge exists in digital form. AI won’t work without electricity. Even our brain won’t work without electricity in our body. Yes, we are a small electric plant. Maybe our soul consist with electricity… If we lose electricity, do we lose our souls? Or not?
As of the beginning of 2026, electricity consumption by companies engaged in AI has reached critical levels, accounting for about 1.5% of total global consumption (approximately 415 TWh per year). In the United States, this figure is even higher - data centers consume more than 4.4% of the nation’s electricity.
For context, these 415 TWh exceed the annual electricity consumption of such industrialized countries as France or the United Kingdom.
Consumption of Leading Companies (2024 - 2025)
Tech giants developing AI are already consuming more energy than many entire countries:
Google: ~30.8-32.1 million MWh (95.8% of this volume is attributed specifically to data centers).
Microsoft: ~23-24 TWh.
Meta: ~15 TWh.
Apple: ~3.5 TWh.
NVIDIA: ~0.6 TWh.
Energy Intensity of Individual Operations
Early electricity was needed for light and work, today, there is a need for electricity for thinking and answering. A standard Google search query consumes about 0.3 Wh of electricity. A request to ChatGPT or Gemini requires approximately 3 Wh. Generating a single AI-based video can require up to 3.4 million joules, which is equivalent to charging hundreds of smartphones.
The 360-hectare “Stargate” data center by Microsoft and OpenAI will require enough electricity to power 300,000 households. The main challenge now is that the power grids in many regions - especially in Virginia, where the largest concentration of data centers is located - are simply unable to adapt quickly enough to such a level of demand. Companies have realized that solar and wind power are too unstable for data centers that must operate 24/7.
Microsoft and Three Mile Island: Microsoft has signed a 20-year agreement to restart a previously shut-down reactor at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station. This is an unprecedented case in which a single private company is purchasing the entire output capacity of a nuclear power plant.
The Helion Energy project, in which Sam Altman has invested more than $375 million (his largest personal investment), is a key element of his AI development strategy. Altman is convinced that without a breakthrough in energy production, creating powerful artificial general intelligence (AGI) will be impossible due to the enormous energy demands of computing centers.
AI and nuclear fusion form a “technological loop” within Helion: AI helps develop energy generation, which in turn will power even more advanced AI systems. For what? Will we find medicine for cancer or produce more bitcoins? It reminded me of my own old story.
Ten years ago (in age “without” AI), I wanted to write a book. The story was about a dwarf and his journey home. He and his friends had to cross lands and seas. It was a classic story in John Tolkien’s style. But it was something different. Dragons didn’t fly to the dwarves’ land (rock) for their gold. They didn’t even have gold.
Dwarves occupied not a simple rock, it was a volcano. They didn’t greed about gold, they wanted to create new magic for that world. They used a volcano as a thermal power plant to produce electricity. That magic was even more powerful than wizards had seen before. They almost finished their plant, but one dwarf found an egg in a cave in the rock. In that world, for many years, nobody seen dragons. The dragon was a symbol of greed - the greed of unreasonable power. Of course, as you can guess, they raised a dragon. As John Tolkien said, “If you live side by side with a dragon, please be considerate of it.” So, of course, the dragon burned their home with the dwarves. Our hero (dwarf) wants to go to the rock to find and rebuild the magic of dwarves - electricity, but before he has to fight the dragon. First of all, fight a dragon within himself.
In the future, we’ll see wars not for oil, but for electricity. Oh, shitt that war is already going on. The Russians occupied Ukrainian the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and destroyed almost all thermal power plants in Ukraine. That “dragon” (Russians) is burning everything around it, and it is not stopping. Today in Ukraine, there isn’t enough electricity, but they didn’t lose their souls or faith. They fight the dragon. It’s a good sign for us - we still have reason to produce electricity, not only for AI, but for mankind at all.