The International Energy Agency(IEA), said the median estimate for data centers, AI-connected offerings and cryptocurrency mining could rise to anything between 620 and 1,050 TWh in 2026.
The 620 and 1,050 TWh in 2026 projection per the IEA’s report, would be the equivalent “to adding at least one Sweden or at most one Germany” to the most recent estimates. Calculating the median estimated energy use, data centers and associated industries would rival the electricity demand of Japan, which as of 2022 had the fifth-highest in the world after China (8,540 TWh), the United States (4,128 TWh), India (1,463 TWh) and Russia (1,026 TWh).
This was against the median estimate for data centers, AI-connected offerings and cryptocurrency mining stood at 415 TWh in 2022, already significantly higher than the United Kingdom’s electricity demand and on par with the electricity consumption of France.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), global electricity consumption stood at roughly 27,000 terawatt-hours. While countries like China and the United States had the highest electricity demand by a considerable margin, a new player that rivals the consumption of some of the biggest economies and is bolstered by the ongoing AI hype has entered the stage: data centers. As the International Energy Agency (IEA) points out in a recent report, estimated data center energy consumption could increase rapidly over the next two years.
Though data centers are getting more energy-efficient and are required by law to do so in some countries like Germany, the increased demand fueled by the AI hype cycle might be too high to be fully mitigated.
This is especially true for big tech companies like Alphabet, Amazon or Meta. The most recent Digital Economy Report by the UN suggests that data centers run by GAMAM companies alone were responsible for energy consumption of upwards of 90 TWh, more than countries like Finland, Belgium, Chile or Switzerland.
Alphabet’s CO2 emissions, which are largely connected to an increase in data center activity, have risen by 48 percent compared to 2019.
The company claims that “reducing emissions may be challenging due to increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute, and the emissions associated with the expected increases in our technical infrastructure investment” in its 2024 Environmental Report.
Microsoft, which partnered with OpenAI to integrate its large language models into all of its products, reported CO2 emission increases of 30 percent compared to 2020.
About 85% of additional electricity demand through 2026 is set to come from outside advanced economies, with China contributing substantially even as the country’s economy undergoes structural changes.
In 2023, China’s electricity demand rose by 6.4%, driven by the services and industrial sectors.
With the country’s economic growth expected to slow and become less reliant on heavy industry, the pace of Chinese electricity demand growth eases to 5.1% in 2024, 4.9% in 2025 and 4.7% in 2026 in our forecasts.
Even so, the total increase in China’s electricity demand through 2026 of about 1 400 TWh is more than half of the European Union’s current annual electricity consumption.
Electricity consumption per capita in China already exceeded that of the European Union at the end of 2022 and is set to rise further.
The rapidly expanding production of solar PV modules and electric vehicles, and the processing of related materials, will support ongoing electricity demand growth in China while the structure of its economy evolves.
