U.S. Data Centers Took 40% of Global Electricity in 2025, Drove Half of Worldwide Demand Growth
The Energy Institute's first-ever data-center electricity tracking shows the U.S. drove roughly half of global demand growth in 2025, consuming 39.7% of the worldwide total.
American data centers consumed 312.6 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2025, representing 39.7% of the entire global total — the first time the Energy Institute's Statistical Review of World Energy has tracked data-center demand as a discrete category in the report's 75-year history. The findings, published Thursday (2026-08-27), give power markets their first consistent official benchmark for a load segment that has been reshaping U.S. grid planning at a pace most utilities did not anticipate.5,4,6
U.S. consumption climbed from 249.0 TWh in 2024 to 312.6 TWh in 2025, a gain of 63.5 TWh. Global data-center electricity demand grew by roughly 129.6 TWh over the same period, which means the United States accounted for approximately 49% of the entire worldwide increase, the Energy Institute data show. China ranked second at 205.7 TWh, equivalent to 26.1% of the global total, while Europe accounted for 144.6 TWh, or 18.4%. The rest of Asia-Pacific consumed a further 63.2 TWh.5
The year-on-year growth rate ran close to 20%. Global data-center demand stood at 410.8 TWh in 2020; by 2025 the five-year expansion reached roughly 92%, at an average annual rate of nearly 14%, according to the Energy Institute. But utilities that built their long-range demand forecasts on slow, predictable load growth are now repricing capacity needs on much shorter planning cycles.5
For context on how far U.S. data-center demand has come: in 2014, the country's data centers consumed an estimated 70 billion kilowatt-hours, roughly 70 TWh, representing about 1.8% of total U.S. electricity consumption, per Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory research. By 2025 that figure reached 312.6 TWh. Lawrence Berkeley data also showed consumption grew only 4% between 2010 and 2014, a steep deceleration from a 24% gain in the prior five-year period and from a near-90% surge between 2000 and 2005. The AI-driven acceleration since 2020 has erased that slowdown.1,5
The IEA quantified the intensity of modern AI infrastructure in its 2026 "Key Questions on Energy and AI" update: a single rack inside an advanced data center could carry peak power demand equivalent to that of 65 households by 2027. Scaled across tens of thousands of racks being commissioned across U.S. campuses, the implied load growth is not something transmission planning cycles, which operate on timelines measured in years, can easily absorb.2
U.S. electricity demand rose 3% overall in 2025, with data-center load among the primary contributors. Adding 63.5 TWh in twelve months means U.S. data-center consumption is now more than four times what Lawrence Berkeley estimated for the entire U.S. fleet in 2014.3,1,5
The geographic distribution carries implications for fuel markets beyond U.S. borders. China's 205.7 TWh and the rest of Asia-Pacific's 63.2 TWh represent a growing call on regional generation capacity, driving incremental demand for gas-fired backup power. JKM front-month Asian LNG stood at $23.17/MMBtu at Friday's close (2026-08-29), reflecting power sector demand that digital infrastructure growth across the region is compounding.5
For utility procurement desks, the immediate challenge is whether generation additions can keep pace with load that has grown at roughly 14% annually on a global basis. NYMEX Henry Hub front-month gas settled at $2.89/MMBtu at Friday's close (2026-08-29). Gas-fired generation remains economic at that price, but the around-the-clock nature of data-center load, which does not follow daily or seasonal demand curves, pushes the economics toward firm baseload capacity rather than peaking solutions.5,2
The IEA's 65-households-per-rack intensity figure suggests 2025 is not the demand ceiling. U.S. data-center electricity use has effectively quadrupled since 2014. Whether interconnection approvals and transmission buildout can reach the speed the load trajectory now demands is the figure to track through the rest of 2026.2,1,5