Data centers expected to use 4x more electricity by 2035

What happened

BloombergNEF published a report on July 21, 2026 projecting a fourfold increase in U.S. data center electricity consumption by 2035 — reaching 20% of total U.S. output. Globally, the IEA estimates consumption reaching 945 TWh by 2030 and 1,200 TWh by 2035.

Context and impact

The primary driver is AI infrastructure — training and inference of large models require enormous continuous power. The projection is 83% higher than BloombergNEF's own December 2024 estimate, reflecting dramatically accelerated AI compute demand. Capacity must grow to nearly 200 GW.

Details

• U.S. by 2035: data centers = 20% of total electricity consumption (4x today)
• Global 2030: 945 TWh; 2035: 1,200 TWh (IEA)
• Required capacity: ~200 GW
• Forecast revised upward by 83% from December 2024
• New York: first U.S. state to impose a moratorium on hyperscale data centers
• Australia: proposed law requiring data centers to return energy to the grid