The International Energy Agency's Electricity 2026 report finds that data centers will be the single largest driver of new US electricity demand over the next five years. US electricity consumption is projected to rise by close to 2 percent per year on average between 2026 and 2030, more than double the rate seen over the past decade.

In total, the IEA expects the United States to add more than 420 terawatt hours of electricity use over the five year period. Data center expansion alone is expected to account for roughly half of that growth, as AI training and cloud computing loads continue to scale up across the country. The buildings sector overall, which includes data centers alongside space cooling and heat pumps, is expected to remain the largest contributor to demand growth nationally.

The US trend mirrors a global pattern. Worldwide, electricity demand from data centers rose 17 percent in 2025, far outpacing overall global electricity demand growth of 3 percent that year, according to a separate IEA analysis released earlier in 2026. Global electricity consumption from data centers is on track to double by 2030, and power use from AI focused data centers specifically is projected to triple over the same period.

The IEA also found that capital expenditure from five large technology companies topped 400 billion dollars in 2025 and is set to rise by a further 75 percent in 2026, underscoring how closely data center buildout and electricity planning are now linked in the United States and worldwide.

Source: IEA - https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2026/demand