According to the forecasts of the consulting firm Gartner, the Electricity demand for data centers will grow worldwide by 16% in 2025, doubling by 2030. The company’s analysts, therefore, estimate that electricity consumption in data centers will grow from 448 terawatts in 2025 to 980 terawatts in 2030.
By 2025, servers optimized to work with AI loads will consume an estimated 21% of total data center energy consumption. By 2030, the consumption of this type of servers will have increased to 44% of the total. In the year 2030, these AI servers will concentrate 64% of the increase in electricity demand for this type of facilities.
By region, the United States and China will account for more than two-thirds of total data center energy demand. China, however, will be better positioned, thanks to the use of servers with more efficient energy consumption, as well as better infrastructure planning.
As for the United States, the electricity consumption of its data centers is expected to rise from 4% to 7.8% of the region’s total consumption between 2025 and 2030. Meanwhile, the energy consumption of data centers in Europe will rise from 2.7% of the total to 5%. Consumption growth in this type of facility in the Asia-Pacific region will be, as expected, more moderate.
Regarding the energy sources that will be used in the future in data centers, the current situation, with fossil fuels dominating energy generation at the point of consumption, is not sustainable. Little by little, new clean energy generation alternatives are being imposed at the point of consumption.
These alternatives include green hydrogen, geothermal energy and even small-scale nuclear reactors. Everything indicates that they will become, at least most, viable alternatives to fossil fuels to create energy microgrids for greener data centers when the end of this decade arrives.
Linglan Wang, Research Director at Gartnerhas highlighted that «While conventional servers and supporting infrastructure contribute to the total power consumption of data centers, the rapid rise of AI-optimized servers is driving the increase in data center power consumption. Its electricity consumption will multiply almost fivefold, going from 93 terawatts per hour in 2025 to 432 terawatts per hour in 2030«.
Tony Harvey, Vice President and Analyst at Gartnerhas also commented that «In the short term, natural gas will be the main energy source for data centers. However, in the next three to five years, we foresee rapid growth in battery energy storage systems (BESS) to balance fluctuations in solar and wind energy. Although geothermal microgrids are very promising, their high initial costs and difficulties in obtaining the necessary permits will mean that, for now, they remain a minority option«.
