on US power demand and supply, which includes figures for datacenters in particular. The analysts estimate that datacenter power demand will sit at 307 terawatt hours , more than double the 130 TWh the firm says was consumed in 2023.
The reasoning behind rapidly increasing power draw is the usual suspect."The growth in electricity demand for datacenters will be heavily driven by those focused on artificial intelligence ," Rystad says,"which consumes more electricity compared to traditional computing." To meet this demand, Rystad says the best energy sources for datacenters will be renewables thanks to their scalability and increasing viability. Consequently, wind energy supply is expected to just about double by 2030, while solar will roughly triple, if the calculations are correct. Power generated by coal will decrease by about half, though won't be totally eliminated.
Although a doubling of datacenter power consumption in just over five years sounds extreme, Rystad's forecast is actually one of the more moderate predictions. In April, Goldman Sachs its take on datacenter power usage and figured that consumption would nearly triple by 2030, with much of that demand being driven by AI.
Yet even Goldman Sach's prediction isn't the most extreme we've ever seen. Arm CEO Rene Haas has repeatedly shared his belief that athanks to the AI revolution. For reference, Goldman Sachs claims a figure of eight percent based on its data. Rystad doesn't offer a similar metric at all..