Global data center electricity consumption is projected to roughly double to about 945 terawatt hours by 2030, according to International Energy Agency analysis. Consumption reached an estimated 415 terawatt hours in 2024, close to the total annual electricity use of France, after growing at roughly 12% per year since 2019.

The agency puts the growth rate for data center consumption between 2024 and 2030 at about 15% annually, more than four times the pace of total electricity consumption across all other sectors combined. Electricity use by AI focused facilities specifically surged 50% during 2025 and is on track to triple by the end of the decade.

Nearly 80% of the projected growth through 2030 lands in the United States and China. US data center electricity use alone is expected to more than double over that period. Europe, which holds a much smaller share of the global total, faces a projected 70% increase. That concentration means a small number of regional electricity systems in two countries will carry most of the new load.

Within the United States, the IEA calculates that data centers account for nearly half of all electricity demand growth between now and 2030. By the end of the decade the country is projected to consume more electricity for data centers than for the combined production of aluminum, steel, cement, chemicals, and all other energy intensive goods. Conditional offtake agreements between data center operators and small modular reactor projects have grown from 25 gigawatts at the end of 2024 to 45 gigawatts.

Source: International Energy Agency - https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/executive-summary