AI's 'insatiable' electricity demand could slow its growth — a lot, Arm exec says

Future Energy Projections

Energy consumption by hardware in data centers is expected to more than double from 21 gigawatts in 2023 to over 50 gigawatts by 2030. This scaling of infrastructure could significantly increase global energy consumption, with data centers potentially using 46 terawatt-hours annually by 2024, triple that of 2023.

By the numbers

100 million: Number of ChatGPT active users.

9,000-11,000: Number of cloud data centers across the globe.

2026: Year by which electricity demand from data centers, AI, and cryptocurrency could double.

46 terawatt-hours: Global energy consumption of all data centers estimated for the 2024 calendar year, three times more than 2023.