According to a new report by BloombergNEF, data centers are expected to consume one-fifth of the electricity produced in the United States by 2035. This rate is four times the current level.

It is predicted that the increase in artificial intelligence computing power will increase data center capacity to approximately 200 gigawatts in the next decade. Nearly half of this capacity will be devoted to training and extraction processes, and most of it will be concentrated in the USA.

Rapid increase in electricity demand

BloombergNEF’s new electricity demand forecast for 2035 is 83 percent higher than the predictions made in December. EPRI more than doubled its own 2024 forecast, while S&P’s forecast rose by more than a third between October and April.

These revisions reveal how fast the pace of information center development is across the United States. BloombergNEF predicts that within the next decade, the majority of new information centers will be connected to already strained power grids.

34 percent of the electricity of the PJM Interconnection grid, which stretches from Virginia to Illinois, will go to information centers. ERCOT, which covers most of Texas, will have to allocate 22 percent of its production capacity to these centers.

Pressure on networks is increasing

PJM is struggling to cope with contact requests from both large manufacturers and large loads. The network had suspended applications for new resources to be connected to the system for four years.

Although the queue opened again in April, the situation remains serious and a public utility named American Electric Power is threatening to withdraw from the contact. Due to the supply-demand imbalance, electricity prices increased by 76 percent last year.

Despite all these congestions, data centers continue to connect to PJM. The companies accounted for 38 percent of the prices in the grid manager’s last capacity auction.

If AI adoption continues aggressively, knowledge centers will create 1,935 terawatt-hours of new electricity demand worldwide by 2033. This measure corresponds pretty closely to India’s total annual electricity consumption.

What do you think about this rapid increase in the power requirements of data centers?