Data centers are set to consume substantially more power due to the rise of artificial intelligence, with AI-optimized servers predicted to surpass conventional servers in energy demand by 2027. Gartner's latest forecast indicates that worldwide data center electricity consumption will climb from 447 terawatt-hours in 2025 to 565 terawatt-hours in 2026, representing a 26% year-over-year increase.
This year, global data center power demand is expected to rise by 27%, reaching a peak of 132 gigawatts, up from 104 GW in 2025. Analysts anticipate this trend will continue, with data center power demand potentially exceeding 290 GW by 2030. Linglan Wang, Gartner's Director Analyst, highlighted that the intense compute requirements of AI workloads are the primary driver of this unprecedented growth. Power availability has become a critical constraint in scaling AI capacity, positioning data center power security as a key factor in the competitive AI landscape.
AI-optimized servers are projected to account for 31% of data center power consumption this year, having already seen an 84.2% increase. By 2027, their power demands are expected to grow by an additional 47.8%. In contrast, the power demands of conventional servers are on a trajectory to grow by approximately 1.2% in 2026 and 2.4% in 2027.
This escalating energy consumption is further compounded by the operational needs of data centers themselves. Approximately 80% of the world's data centers are situated in climates that are not ideal, necessitating significant energy expenditure on temperature control systems. Gartner reported that the power consumption for cooling and other infrastructure within data centers grew by 22.6% in 2026. The increased demand from data centers also poses a risk of taxing local power infrastructure.
This trend aligns with broader industry observations, such as Google's recent environmental report, which suggests its own energy consumption is on an exponential growth trend. The company's total electricity consumption last year was 43 TWh, nearly 10% of Gartner's global figures for 2025.