Data centres continue to guzzle electricity – what’s the industry doing about it?

According to a recent report by the International Data Center Authority (IDCA), data centres now account for roughly 6% of electricity consumption in both the UK and the US.

These figures are significantly above the global average and are perhaps an example of how AI demand is disrupting the industry, as compute expansion leads to nations rethinking their national infrastructure priorities.

Currently, data centres have a global footprint of 67.7GW, marking 36% growth over the past two years alone. These facilities now consume 2% of the world’s electricity, up from 1.9% in mid-year 2025 – yet it seems like some countries are moving faster and consuming more power than others.

Why is electricity consumption increasing?

Despite the industry encountering supply chain challenges, slow grid connections and other physical bottlenecks, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that data centre electricity continued to surge in 2025. Electricity demand from data centres soared by 17% in 2025, with AI-focused data centres well outpacing the growth in global electricity demand of 3%.

According to the IDCA’s report, the proportion of electricity used by vast warehouses stacked with microchips to power AI and the internet has risen 15% worldwide in the past two years. This is happening as investment into data centres approaches $1 trillion – nearly 1% of the global economy.

It’s happening because data centres continue to guzzle power and energy at a pace, primarily due to the AI boom. Exploding interest has confronted the industry with a demand challenge, as businesses continue to invest in AI to power new technology and digitally transform their industries.

However, as AI grows more complex, training and deploying these models requires even more processing power to run, which results in direct electricity systems being used to facilitate it. Likewise, immense cooling requirements for these power-hungry systems have resulted in more energy consumption, too.

What are the consequences?

As power usage continues to surge at a pace worldwide, the IDCA has called on technology companies to be more transparent about their plans for new data centres to tackle “community frustration” – having said facilities are “sparking societal and political concerns”.

The consequences of rising power demands have been significant. In 2025, the UK government estimated that its data centres used 2.5% of electricity, predicting this would increase fourfold by 2030.

In the first half of 2025, the grid connection queue in the UK grew 460%.

Such a significant increase has led to more than 100 data centres across the UK planning to burn gas to generate electricity, with some even doing so permanently, according to The Guardian. This has been attributed to years-long waiting times to connect to the National Grid and has sparked concerns over the UK meeting its climate targets.

“There’s 100GW of data centre projects in the queue,” Stuart Okin, director of cyber regulation and AI at Ofgem, told The Guardian. “Clearly that’s not all going to be able to connect [to the grid]. If a project isn’t going to get a connection, it is going to have to come up with an alternative method.”

In the US, too, many projects rely on gas generation, with Elon Musk’s xAI even being found to be running gas turbines illegally. Not only has this violated local environmental regulations, but it is also harming the health of nearby residents.

Fuelling AI data centre developments is also leading to wasteful consumption. In the US, the IDCA found that as much as 13% of data centre consumption across the country comes from unused, “zombie” cloud containers and services. The waste totalled more than three gigawatts (3GW), comparable to three nuclear reactors.

This level of inefficiency is happening worldwide, the report said and is only set to increase as cloud computing rises.

What should the data centre industry do about it?

As concerns mount over grid instability and the decentralisation of energy, the data centre industry is having to come up with new ways to be ‘good energy citizens’ and define a future that is more sustainable by design. It needs to do this not only to reduce reliance on critical infrastructure systems, but perhaps also to improve public perception of the industry.

Some organisations are doing just that. Speaking in Capacity’s State of the Sector: Data Centres report recently, Giancarlo Giacomello, head of data centre & colocation at Aruba S.p.A. addressed the recent argument that data centres will use the same power as Germany by 2030.

“Everyone is shocked, but if you put that into perspective in comparison to the rest of the world, the consumption isn’t actually that high,” he said. He added that energy conversations are a topic of much debate and that data centre operators must take responsibility for the way resources are used in their facilities.

“Data centres can be good neighbours for surrounding infrastructure,” he explained. “We want operators to be aware of their environmental impact to make infrastructure as efficient as it can be and make the industry sustainable.”

Despite progressive conversations taking place, electricity use continues to rise. To combat it, the IDCA said governments, investors and operators have a responsibility to collaborate, working on developing data centres as the foundation of their digital infrastructure.

As Datacloud managing director Annabel Helm put it at Datacloud Energy Europe in March, the industry is standing at a “moment of consequence” and “the infrastructure we’re responsible for is not nice to have; it’s critical.”

She added: “We need the clarity, alignment and partnerships to act.”

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