By 2030, electricity demand from data centers worldwide will more than double, reaching around 945 TWh, slightly more than Japan's entire electricity consumption, and AI will be the most significant driver of this increase, with electricity demand from data centers optimized for artificial intelligence expected to more than quadruple by 2030.
Data center energy growth will account for less than 10% of global demand growth, but in some regions it will account for more: in the United States, for example, it will account for nearly half of growth and in Japan, more than half.
Driven by the use of artificial intelligence, the U.S. economy is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for data processing than for the production of all energy-intensive goods, including aluminum, steel, cement and chemicals, the report says.
In broader advanced economies, data centers are expected to drive more than 20% of electricity demand growth through 2030, returning those economies’ electricity demand to growth after years of stagnation or decline in consumption in many of them, the report says.
IEA analysis of existing and proposed data centers shows that they are growing larger and tending to cluster, often around cities.
Finally, the report also contains estimates on the global demand for critical minerals for data centers, on which supply chains are highly concentrated, the agency's director Fatih Birol points out, with reference to the strong position of Asia and in particular of China in these supply chains.
