AI boom ushers in a new era of US electricity demand
The global AI boom is significantly increasing electricity demand from data centers, with the United States driving nearly half of this growth. US data centers consumed 312.6 TWh in 2025, accounting for 39.7% of the global total, leading to a major challenge for utilities and grid operators who must rapidly expand generation and transmission capacity.
The global electricity demand from data centers is experiencing unprecedented growth, with the United States at the forefront of this expansion. According to the Energy Institute's 2026 Statistical Review of World Energy, data centers worldwide consumed 787.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2025, an almost 20% increase in a single year and a 92% rise since 2020. This makes data centers' consumption comparable to that of some of the world's largest power markets, presenting a significant challenge for utilities, grid operators, and regulators.
The United States alone accounted for approximately 39.7% of global data center electricity consumption in 2025, reaching 312.6 TWh. This represents a substantial 25.5% surge from 2024 to 2025, with the US contributing nearly half of the global increase in demand during that period. This acceleration marks the end of a long era of stagnant US electricity demand, with the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) identifying data center use as a major driver of this shift. Virginia serves as a prime example, where commercial-sector electricity sales significantly increased, largely due to its high concentration of data centers, leading to peak demand increases in the Dominion portion of the PJM grid.
This rapid growth strains existing infrastructure, leading to transmission congestion and higher costs, particularly in areas like Northern Virginia. While forecasts for future demand vary, there's a consensus that it will continue to rise, potentially consuming 6% of the world's electricity by 2030 in one scenario. The challenge lies in building the necessary generation and transmission capacity, which includes natural gas, renewables with storage, and even previously considered-for-retirement nuclear plants, to meet the gigawatt-scale power requirements of new AI data center campuses.