Data centers use electricity to run servers, storage and networking equipment, and to cool and support that equipment. AI is adding demand as more specialized, power-dense servers are deployed and more AI workloads run. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2026 central projection puts data-center electricity consumption at 485 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 and 950 TWh in 2030. That is a projected global increase, not a prediction of what any one facility or local electricity bill will do.
What uses electricity inside a data center?
A data center is more than a room full of processors. Servers process information; storage systems hold it; networking equipment moves it. Cooling, power distribution and other building systems also draw electricity. The electricity used by the computing equipment is often called the IT load; the facility’s total use includes that load plus supporting infrastructure.
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In its 2025 Energy and AI report, the IEA estimates that servers account for around 60% of electricity demand in modern data centers on average. The share varies substantially by facility type and installed equipment, so it is not a universal breakdown. The remaining demand includes cooling and other infrastructure.
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The IEA’s 2026 central projection estimates that data centers will consume 485 TWh in 2025 and 950 TWh in 2030, when they would account for around 3% of global electricity demand. The IEA also projects that electricity consumption at AI-focused data centers will triple over that period. These are estimates and projections, not metered totals for every data center.
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| IEA estimate or projection | Figure | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 estimate, published in 2026 | 485 TWh | Data-center electricity consumption |
| 2030 central projection, published in 2026 | 950 TWh; around 3% of global electricity demand | Data-center electricity consumption and its projected share of global demand |
| 2025–2030 projection, published in 2026 | Threefold increase | Electricity consumption at AI-focused data centers |
Those figures should not be mixed with a different IEA forecast from 2025. In that report, the IEA projected that generation supplying data centers would rise from 460 TWh in 2024 to more than 1,000 TWh in 2030. That is a generation-to-supply measure from an earlier forecast, not the same consumption series as the 2026 figures above.
Why does AI increase electricity demand?
AI demand depends on three things: how much electricity each task takes, how widely AI is used, and which kinds of tasks people run. Efficiency per task has improved rapidly, but efficiency alone does not determine total electricity use. More users and more frequent or energy-intensive tasks can outweigh some of the savings per task.
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AI workloads use specialized servers
Training and running AI models takes place mainly in data centers. Many AI workloads use accelerated servers with specialized processors. The IEA’s 2025 analysis projected faster electricity-consumption growth for accelerated servers than for conventional servers, and attributed a substantial share of net data-center demand growth to them. That is a model projection from that report, not a fixed share that applies to every facility or year.
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A simple text query typically uses less electricity than running a television for the same amount of time, according to the IEA. Video generation, reasoning and agentic tasks can use hundreds or thousands of times more energy per query than simple text generation. A single “energy per AI prompt” figure therefore cannot describe the full range of tasks—or establish how much electricity the AI sector uses in total.
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AI server power is becoming denser and less steady
The IEA’s 2026 summary says the power density of AI servers increased elevenfold between 2020 and 2025 and is set to rise a further fourfold by 2027. These figures describe server power density, not a direct measure of global electricity consumption. The IEA also notes that training and model use can create large, rapid swings in power demand, making reliable supply and flexibility important for data-center operators and the systems that serve them.
What can the growth mean for power grids and electricity bills?
A global share of around 3% in 2030 does not tell a community how large the local impact will be. Data centers are concentrated in particular regions and require large, reliable connections. Whether new demand raises electricity costs depends on local supply and demand, the shape and timing of the load, the grid investment required, and how those costs are allocated.
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- In a tight power system, serving a new data center may require additional generation or grid upgrades. If costs are not allocated fairly, other electricity customers may bear some of them.
- Where there is excess supply or unused capacity, added demand may make better use of existing infrastructure.
- Uncertain peak loads and data-center construction that moves faster than power-system investment can create affordability risks.
As a result, rising data-center demand does not translate automatically into the same change in household electricity bills everywhere. The IEA identifies better demand forecasting and company disclosure, coordinated connection queues and permitting, fair cost allocation, and flexible or non-firm connections and demand response as possible ways to manage grid effects. Batteries and on-site generation can help facilities interact with the grid, but do not remove wider grid bottlenecks.
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More data-center demand does not mean one fuel will supply all of it. In its 2025 base-case supply analysis, the IEA projected that renewables would meet nearly half of the additional electricity demand from data centers between 2024 and 2030. Natural gas and coal together were projected to meet more than 40% of that increase. These are scenario findings from the 2025 report, not a measurement of the supply mix at every data center or an update to the 2026 consumption forecast.
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The IEA’s 2026 projection puts data-center-associated emissions at around 350 million tonnes in 2035, about 2% of global electricity-sector emissions. The amount depends on the demand pathway and the electricity sources serving the facilities.
How certain is the demand forecast?
The 950 TWh figure is the IEA’s 2030 central projection, not a guaranteed outcome. Its 2026 assessment says the central demand trajectory remains close to the one in the IEA’s 2025 report, while bottlenecks make more aggressive near-term scenarios less likely. Longer-term demand could still move higher or lower.
- Faster AI adoption, more energy-intensive applications, or the removal of deployment bottlenecks could increase demand.
- Efficiency gains, slower adoption, or constraints on deployment could reduce or delay it.
- Grid connections, energy equipment, chip supply, project pipelines and financing also affect how quickly planned facilities can come online.
The right way to compare two data-center forecasts is to check their publication date and forecast year, whether they measure consumption or generation supplied, their scenario and geography, and whether they cover all data-center workloads or only AI-focused facilities. Facility comparisons also depend on whether they report IT load or total facility electricity, equipment density, cooling efficiency, utilization and peak or flexible demand.
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