AI Needs More Abundant Power Supplies to Keep Driving Economic Growth
Artificial intelligence is an emerging source of productivity and economic growth that’s also reshaping employment and investment.
AI has the potential to raise the average pace of annual global economic growth according to scenarios in our recent analysis, included in the IMF’s April 2025 World Economic Outlook.
AI, however, needs more and more electricity for the data centers that make it possible. The resulting strain on power grids has major implications for global electricity demand.
The world’s data centers consumed as much as 500 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023, according to the most recent full-year estimate by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. That total, which was more than double the annual levels from 2015-19, could triple to 1,500 terawatt-hours by 2030, OPEC projects.
As this Chart of the Week shows, electricity used by data centers alone, already as much as that of Germany or France, would by 2030 be comparable to that of India, third world’s largest electricity user. This would also leapfrog over the projected consumption by electric vehicles, using 1.5 times as much power than EVs by the decade’s end.