Embodiments described herein relate generally to managing the power consumption of a virtual machine on a computing device. The computing device may include a virtual machine power management feature that is to detect when a virtual machine running on the computing device should be frozen. In response to this detection, the virtual machine may be frozen by reducing the processor cycles consumed by the virtual machine. This detection may be based on, for example, detection that the virtual machine is no longer running in the foreground or detection that the virtual machine is idle. The computing device may be a portable electronic device in which power consumption is an important consideration. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.