Data centres are on course to use as much electricity as the EU

This warning was issued by ABI Research, which predicts that the number of data centres is expected to top 24,000 worldwide by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12%.

The research firm says this number of data centres will consume 2,477 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year. By comparison, the sector consumed an estimated 460 TWh in 2022, according to a separate report earlier this year by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

To put these numbers into context, the IEA puts the electricity consumption of the EU – with its 448.4 million inhabitants and €14.5 trillion of GDP – at 2,568 TWh for 2023. It's worrying to think that just 24,000 data centres will consume broadly a similar amount. ABI Research said the rapid expansion of the data centre market is posing an increased energy demand challenge to the grid.

"Compute power of power-hungry GPUs and cooling are the most energy-intensive processes within the data centre, amounting to 80 percent of the energy demand," said Rithika Thomas, sustainable technologies senior analyst at ABI Research.

The growth of AI is, unsurprisingly, one of the biggest culprits. Today, AI applications and training models are estimated to account for 10-20% of data centre electricity consumption, says ABI Research, and this is at a time when AI is still in the early stages of global adoption.

"Integrating new retrofit technology into existing data centre infrastructure and responsible compute are critical to reduce demand on the grid, restrain the surge in energy demand, and limit Scope 1-3 emissions," Thomas said.

ABI called on governments to steer the industry towards greener pastures.

"By establishing green building standards, incentivising the use of renewable energy sources, regulating the use of cooling refrigerants, and supporting efficient e-waste management practices, governments are pushing the concept of sustainable data centres to optimise operations, reduce costs, and mitigate climate risk," Thomas said.

Of course for the hyperscale cloud market – which accounts for the biggest chunk of global data centre capacity – this is a golden age.

Synergy Research Group estimates that global spending on cloud infrastructure services came in at $79 billion in Q2, up 22% percent year-on-year. The top three hyperscalers – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google – accounted for 73% of public cloud revenues.

"This is the third consecutive quarter in which the year-on-year growth rate was 20% or more, with generative AI being one of the factors behind the market acceleration," Synergy said. "While some economic, currency and political headwinds remain, the fundamental strength of the market continues to push spending on cloud services to new highs."

That's all well and good, but with mounting concern about the amount of power these facilities consume, it begs the question how sustainable is this growth?