What if we told you that data centers use as much electricity as could power approximately 39 to 40 million average American homes for a year?
Yet they’re being used to run servers for cloud computing, streaming, enterprise IT, and increasingly, AI training and inference.
Today’s visualization shows how much electricity AI data centers use worldwide.
TL;DR
- Global electricity consumption for data centers is projected to more than double, reaching approximately 945 TWh by 2030.
- Data centers currently represent approximately 1.5% of global electricity consumption, rising to just under 3% by 2030.
The data in this explainer comes from the International Energy Agency (IEA), a leading authority on global energy statistics.
Data Center electricity consumption by region (2020-2030)
The table presents electricity consumption by region, including past, current, and projected figures through 2030.
The values are expressed in estimated terawatt-hours (TWh).
| wdt_ID | wdt_created_by | wdt_created_at | wdt_last_edited_by | wdt_last_edited_at | Year | United states | China | Europe | Asia (excluding China) | Rest of World |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:26 AM | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:26 AM | 2020 | 115 | 65 | 55 | 30 | 15 |
| 2 | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:26 AM | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:26 AM | 2025 (proj.) | 210 | 140 | 90 | 40 | 20 |
| 3 | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:26 AM | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:26 AM | 2030 (proj.) | 425 | 285 | 110 | 90 | 35 |
The United States and China are the largest consumers of electricity for data centers, and they are expected to remain dominant in the coming years.
The table above shows that the electricity consumption in 2025 is roughly twice that of 2020, while projections for 2030 indicate more than double the 2025 level.
This trajectory reflects the growth of data centers as the world becomes increasingly digital and technologically reliant.
Collectively, these two regions account for nearly 80% of global growth up to 2030.
While these numbers are significant, other regions such as Asia (excluding China) and the rest of the world are also catching up.
What Makes Data Centers Consume So Much Electricity?
Each equipment type consumes electricity at different levels, depending on the data center’s size, design, and purpose.
The table below shows the approximate share of electricity consumption by equipment type across different data center categories in 2024.
| wdt_ID | wdt_created_by | wdt_created_at | wdt_last_edited_by | wdt_last_edited_at | Data center type | Servers | Storage | Network | Cooling | Other infrastructure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:33 AM | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:33 AM | All data centers | 60% | 6% | 4% | 20% | 10% |
| 2 | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:33 AM | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:33 AM | Enterprise | 42% | 4% | 4% | 35% | 15% |
| 3 | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:33 AM | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:33 AM | Colocation and service provider | 55% | 6% | 4% | 22% | 13% |
| 4 | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:33 AM | Monica Ebunoluwa | 17/04/2026 11:33 AM | hyperscale | 75% | 9% | 3% | 10% | 3% |
Share of Electricity Consumption by Data centre and Equipment type
Source: IEA, 2024
Across all data centers, servers consistently consume the largest share of electricity because they handle the entire workload of processing requests for websites, apps, and digital services.
This is even more evident in hyperscale facilities operated by Amazon, Meta, and Google, where servers account for about 75% of total energy use, driven by high global demand.
These facilities are equipped with highly efficient, modern cooling systems, which is why cooling accounts for about 10% of energy consumption.
This is a sharp contrast to enterprise data centers (e.g., hospitals, universities, and corporate IT departments).
Their cooling systems are often older or mixed-generation equipment, so they take up to 35% even though they run smaller server fleets.
ELI5
Data centers today use about 415 TWh of electricity. This amount is expected to more than double to around 945 TWh by 2030.
Even with this sharp increase, they still account for 1.5% of global electricity consumption.
That’s because data centers are heavily used in specific industries like tech and cloud services, not across all sectors of the economy.
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