What share of the world’s electricity do data centres use?
About 1.5% of the world’s electricity in 2024, or 415 TWh, by the IEA’s estimate. It grew to about 485 TWh in 2025, about as much as France uses in a year. AI is one part: in the US, AI servers used about 26.5% to 38% of data-centre electricity. Use is concentrated: the US used 45% of the world total, China 25% and Europe 15%. So in a few places, like Ireland or Northern Virginia, data centres are a much bigger share of local demand.
The bigger pictureThe IEA expects data centres to use about 950 TWh by 2030, roughly double 2025.
How big is that?
- One short AI question0.34 WhOpenAI says 0.34 Wh; other published figures differ
- Charging a phone once19 WhUS EPA, about 19 Whabout 56× the line above
- One short AI video clip90 Whabout 90 Wh, measured by Hugging Faceabout 4.7× the line above
- Boiling a litre of water99 Whabout 99 Wh from 15 °C, by Hum’s sums from physicsabout the same as the line above
- A US home for a day28 kWhabout 28 kWh, Epoch AI from US dataabout 283× the line above
- A US home for a year11 MWhabout 10,500 kWh, Epoch AI from US dataabout 375× the line above
- AI in the world’s data centres for a year156 TWhabout 156 TWh by Hum’s sums: the middle of the US share of AI, 26.5 to 38%, used as a world estimateabout 14.9 million times the line above
- All the world’s data centres for a year485 TWhabout 485 TWh in 2025, IEAabout 3.1× the line above
The dots sit on a log scale: each step to the right is ten times bigger. It’s the only way a phone charge and all the world’s data centres fit on one line.
What nobody knows yet
- Nobody keeps an official count of the world’s data centres.
- There’s no world figure for AI’s share; the US one stands in.
Sources (7)
- IEA, Energy and AI (2025) Estimated
“Data centres accounted for around 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption in 2024, or 415 terawatt-hours (TWh).”
Quote checked on the page, 3 Oct 2026 - IEA, Key Questions on Energy and AI (2026) Estimated
“electricity consumption from data centres roughly doubling from 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030”
Quote checked on the page, 3 Oct 2026 - Ember, yearly electricity data (CSV, CC BY 4.0) Data row
Data row: France, 2025, electricity demand 480.6 TWh. Demand includes grid losses, so it is close to, not the same as, consumption.
Row checked against the published file, 6 Oct 2026 - MIT Technology Review (citing Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; US figures) Estimated
“AI-specific servers in these data centers are estimated to have used between 53 and 76 terawatt-hours”
Quote checked on the page, 2 Oct 2026 - IEA, Energy and AI (2025) Estimated
“The United States accounted for the largest share of global data centre electricity consumption in 2024 (45%)”
Quote checked on the page, 18 Oct 2026 - IEA, Energy and AI (2025) Estimated
“followed by China (25%) and Europe (15%)”
Quote checked on the page, 18 Oct 2026 - MIT Technology Review (citing Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; US figures) Estimated
“Data centers in the US used somewhere around 200 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024”
Quote checked on the page, 2 Oct 2026
Hum’s sums
- 53 ÷ 200 TWh = 26.5% (US, 2024)
- 76 ÷ 200 TWh = 38% (US, 2024)
Cite this
IEA, Energy and AI (2025), as quoted in Hum, “What share of the world’s electricity do data centres use?”, https://humearth.org/q/world-share (quote checked 3 Oct 2026).
Cite the original source first; Hum is where you found it.
What do Wh, kWh and TWh mean?
Wh is a watt-hour: a 1-watt light left on for an hour. 1 kWh = 1,000 Wh, and 1 TWh = 1 billion kWh. Hum compares each number with something everyday so you don’t need the units.
Send this answer
Data centres used about 1.5% of the world’s electricity in 2024 (IEA). By 2025 that was about as much as France uses in a year, and the IEA expects it to roughly double by 2030.