AI datacentres will need 160% more electricity by 2027

Driven by AI requirements, datacentres will need 160% more electricity in the next two years, says Gartner.

Gartner estimates the power required to run incremental AI-optimised servers will reach 500 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year in 2027, which is 2.6 times the level in 2023.

By 2027: reckons Gartner, 40% of data centres will be operationally constrained by power shortages and the growth of new AI datacentres will be slowed.

Source: Gartner (November 2024)

Reliable  24/7 power can only be generated by either hydroelectric, fossil fuel or nuclear power plants. In the long-term, new technologies for improved battery storage (e.g sodium ion batteries) or clean power (e.g small nuclear reactors) will become available and help achieve sustainability goals.

In September the owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania which was shut down in 2019, said plans to reopen the plant and has signed a deal with Microsoft by which MS will purchase the plant’s entire electric generating capacity over the next 20 years.

In October, Google announced it had ordered six  small nuclear reactors (SMRs) from California’s Kairos Power, with the first due to be completed by 2030 and the rest by 2035.