AI Data Centres: Electricity Demand and Power Supply to 2035

This report tracks the energy footprint of data centres, the physical base of AI. The main source is the International Energy Agency's Energy and AI report, published in April 2025.

The IEA estimates data centres consumed about 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, around 1.5% of global electricity demand [1]. AI is the most important driver of future growth, alongside demand for other digital services [2].

In the IEA Base Case, global data centre electricity consumption doubles to about 945 TWh by 2030, just under 3% of total global electricity consumption [1]. That is slightly more than Japan's total electricity consumption today [2]. Consumption grows by about 15% per year from 2024 to 2030, more than four times faster than electricity use from all other sectors [1].

Uncertainty widens after 2030, but the Base Case reaches about 1,200 TWh by 2035 [2]. Even so, data centres account for less than 10% of growth in global electricity consumption to 2030 [4].

The United States and China account for nearly 80% of global data centre electricity growth to 2030 [1].

• United States: up about 240 TWh, or 130%, from 2024 [1]
• China: up about 175 TWh, or 170% [1]
• Europe: up more than 45 TWh, or 70% [1]
• Japan: up about 15 TWh, or 80% [1]

In the United States, data centres account for nearly half of electricity demand growth to 2030 [2]. By the end of the decade, the country is set to use more electricity for data centres than for producing aluminium, steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined [2].

Electricity generation to supply data centres is projected to grow from 460 TWh in 2024 to over 1,000 TWh in 2030 and 1,300 TWh in 2035 in the IEA Base Case [3]. Renewables are the fastest-growing source, rising by an average 22% a year from 2024 to 2030 and meeting nearly 50% of the growth in demand [3]. Natural gas and coal follow, with nuclear becoming more important towards the end of the decade [3].

Companies are signing direct supply deals. Stanford's AI Index notes Microsoft's $1.6 billion deal to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to power AI, and nuclear agreements by Google and Amazon [5].

Electricity figures are IEA estimates and Base Case projections in terawatt-hours (TWh). 2024 values are estimates; 2030 and 2035 values are projections and are labelled F in charts. Consumption (415 TWh) differs from generation supplied to data centres (460 TWh) because the IEA measures supply at the generation level. Regional increases are IEA Base Case changes from 2024 to 2030. No FREEE.REPORT calculations are used. Spending on data centre hardware is covered in the AI infrastructure report.