Gartner Says Data Centre Electricity Demand to Grow 27% in 2026

11 June 2026 — Worldwide data centre power demand is expected to rise 27% in 2026 and reach 132 gigawatts (GW), up from 104GW in 2025, according to Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company. It is estimated to attain 290GW by 2030, which reflects the unprecedented scale and pace of GenAI boosting demand.

"Surging demand for compute-intensive AI workloads is driving unprecedented data centre power growth, while AI capacity is now constrained by power availability, making data centre power security the new battle ground for scaling and protecting margins in the global AI race," said Linglan Wang, Director Analyst at Gartner.

Electricity consumption for data centres worldwide is projected to grow 26% in 2026 to reach 565 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2026, up from 447TWh in 2025. AI-optimised servers continue to fuel this increase, with Gartner estimating AI-optimised server adoption will account for 31% of data centre power consumption in 2026. By 2027, this power consumption will surpass that of conventional servers (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Data Centre Electricity Consumption by Segment, Worldwide, 2025-2027 (Electricity Consumption - TWh)

Energy-Constrained Future
With data centre power electricity consumption estimated to reach over 1,200TWh by 2030, grid supply will be insufficient to meet the demands of futured data centre construction, affecting all data centre users. 

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

Gartner clients can read more in Forecast: Data Centre Power Capacity and Consumption, Worldwide, 2024-2030, 1Q26.

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