The electricity consumption of data centres is projected to more than double by 2030, according to a report from the International Energy Agency published today. The primary culprit? Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The report covers the current energy footprint for data centres and forecasts their future needs, which could help governments, companies, and local communities to plan infrastructure and AI deployment.
IEA’s models project that data centres will use 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2030, roughly equivalent to the current annual electricity consumption of Japan. By comparison, data centres consumed 415 TWh in 2024, roughly 1.5% of the world’s total electricity consumption (see ‘Global electricity growth’).
Source: IEA. CC BY 4.0
The projections largely focus on data centres, which also run computing tasks other than AI. Although the agency estimated the proportion of servers in data centres devoted to AI. They found that servers for AI accounted for 24% of server electricity demand and 15% of total data centre energy demand in 2024.
Alex de Vries, a researcher at VU Amsterdam and the founder of Digiconomist, who was not involved with the report, thinks this is an underestimate. The report “is a bit vague when it comes to AI specifically,” he says.
Even with these uncertainties, “we should be mindful about how much energy is ultimately being consumed by all these data centers,” says de Vries. “Regardless of the exact number, we’re talking several percentage of our global electricity consumption.”
More power needed
The IEA report finds that the US, Europe, and China are collectively responsible for 85% of data centres’ current energy consumption. Of the predicted growth in consumption, developing economies will account for around 5% by 2030, while advanced economies will account for more than 20% (see ‘Data-centre energy growth’).
Source: IEA. CC BY 4.0
Countries are building power plants and upgrading electricity grids to meet the forecasted energy demand for data centres. But the IEA estimates that 20% of planned centres could face delays being connected to the grid.
