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Global electricity demand for data centres is pegged to jump 26.4 per cent in 2026, with consumption rising to 565 terawatt hours, up from 447TWh in 2025, a report said on Wednesday. 

The estimated surge in consumption was attributed to compute?intensive artificial intelligence workloads pushing power needs to unprecedented levels, the report from a business and technology insights company. Gartner, Inc. said.

The report said that data centre power demand will reach 132 gigawatts in 2026, up from 104 gigawatts in 2025, with projections of 290 gigawatts by 2030, which reflects the unprecedented scale and pace of GenAI boosting demand.

“AI capacity is now constrained by power availability, making data centre power security the new battleground for scaling and protecting margins in the global AI race,” said Linglan Wang, director analyst at Gartner.

AI-optimised servers continue to fuel the increase in data centre power consumption. The report estimated AI-optimised server adoption to account for 31% of data center power consumption in 2026 and that by 2027 their power consumption will surpass that of conventional servers.

With data center power electricity consumption estimated to reach over 1,200TWh by 2030, grid supply will be insufficient to meet the demands of future data center construction, affecting all data center users.

“Infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders must prioritise efficiency upgrades and secure grid access. They also need to invest in high-efficiency cooling systems and edge computing to mitigate power constraints and ensure sustainable, scalable growth,” said Wang.

Cooling and other infrastructure needs are also rising sharply at 22.6 per cent in 2026, and 24.6 per cent in 2027.

A recent report said that data centres consumed as much electricity as Saudi Arabia last year and that, if electricity use doubles by 2030, the associated carbon footprint would require 6.7 billion trees grown over ten years to offset the demand.