Since the rise of cloud computing and internet usage, data centers have become one of the fastest growing industries in the world.
Companies such as Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOGL) depend on data centers to provide cloud and digital services to customers. According to an analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute, data center electricity usage by Meta (META), Amazon, Microsoft (MSFT), and Google more than doubled between 2017 and 2021.
With the current rising demand for artificial intelligence, that usage is expected to grow faster. Compared to a traditional Google search, a study by Goldman Sachs (GS) found that a query on ChatGPT needs almost 10 times as much electricity. Today, EPRI estimates that AI applications use about 10% to 20% of data center electricity.
“AI models are typically much more energy-intensive than the data retrieval, streaming, and communications applications that drove data center growth over the past two decades,” EPRI said.
By the end of the decade, data centers could consume up to 9% of electricity in the U.S., EPRI found — more than double the estimated 4% that is being used today.
To assess potential data center load growth in the U.S. within the next decade, EPRI analyzed data center energy consumption as a percentage of a state’s total electricity consumption in 44 states in 2023.
See the top ten U.S. states where data centers consume the largest share of state electricity consumption, according to EPRI.
