Data centers in the United States are on track to consume roughly one-fifth of the nation's electricity by 2035, up from the current 5.9 percent, as surging artificial intelligence workloads reshape power grids worldwide.
BloombergNEF forecasts that aggressive AI adoption will generate 1,935 terawatt-hours of new global electricity demand over the next seven years — nearly matching India's annual consumption. The International Energy Agency estimates that AI and cloud infrastructure will absorb about 4.4 percent of global electricity. Strain is already visible at the grid level: data centers account for roughly 90 percent of new large-load requests in Texas, and PJM Interconnection expects 34 percent of its power to flow to data centers.
The pace of growth is outstripping planning. Seventy-seven percent of utilities struggle to forecast demand, and 68 percent fear capacity shortfalls as data center expansion outpaces infrastructure development.