How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been adopted faster than nearly any other technology in history.

This rapid growth raises questions about its energy use, which stems from the electricity needed to train AI models and run them for users (a process called inference).

Training AI models involves feeding vast amounts of data into computers to teach them patterns, while inference is when the trained model makes predictions or generates responses based on new inputs.

Most of AI's energy consumption comes from inference, not training, though exact figures are rarely published by tech companies.

For example, in 2025, AI-focused data centers likely used about 0.5% of the world's electricity, while non-AI data centers used twice that amount.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that by 2030, AI and non-AI data centers will each account for about 1.5% of global electricity use, totaling 3%.