Data centers are set to account for a large share of the growth in US electricity demand over the next several years, according to an analysis of International Energy Agency data published by Carbon Brief. The IEA projects that data centers will drive 43 percent of the increase in total US electricity demand between 2024 and 2030, a share exceeded only by Japan, where data centers are expected to account for 50 percent of demand growth over the same period.

That concentration stands well above the global average. Across advanced economies as a group, data centers are projected to drive about 24 percent of electricity demand growth, while the figure falls to 20 percent in Malaysia, 7 percent in China and just 5 percent across emerging and developing economies overall, the IEA data show.

US data centers already used about 4 percent of the nation's electricity in 2023, a figure the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects could climb to between 7 and 12 percent by 2028 as computing demand accelerates. The United States accounts for nearly half of global data center electricity use, compared with 25 percent in China and 15 percent in Europe, the IEA reports. In Virginia, still the largest data center hub in the world, these facilities already consume about 26 percent of the state's electricity, according to research cited in the analysis.

Globally, the IEA's central scenario projects data center electricity consumption will more than double between 2024 and 2030, reaching 945 terawatt-hours, an amount roughly equivalent to Japan's current electricity demand, with artificial intelligence cited as the primary driver of that growth.

Source: Carbon Brief - https://www.carbonbrief.org/ai-five-charts-that-put-data-centre-energy-use-and-emissions-into-context