International Energy Agency Report Highlights the Growing Energy Consumption of Artificial Intelligence

A recent report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday states that the global demand for electricity from data centers, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrencies could double by 2026.

The agency estimated that these three sectors consumed approximately 460 terawatt/hours of electricity worldwide in 2022.

To clarify, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an average American family consumes approximately 10,500 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, which is equivalent to one terawatt-hour, or one billion kilowatt-hours.

Despite the report indicating difficulty in forecasting the extent of technological advancements and energy consumption reduction in cargo charging, the agency estimated a range of 620 to 1050 terawatt-hours of electricity consumption from these sectors in 2026.

The agency stated that data centers are the most important driver for regional demand for electricity, with 33% of the 8000 data centers worldwide located in the United States. In 2022, data centers consumed 200 terawatt-hours of electricity, which is equivalent to 4% of the country’s electricity demand.

By 2026, it is expected that this number will reach 260 terawatts per hour, which is approximately 6% of the country’s total energy consumption. This is largely supported by the growth of cloud-based services and increased reliance on 5G networks.

The report also indicated that increasing the reliance on artificial intelligence in current large-scale applications could significantly increase electricity consumption, as regular searching on Google consumes 0.3 watts/hour of electricity.

The average query on “ChatGPT” consumes 2.9 watt-hours of electricity. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the developer of “ChatGPT,” stated at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos that there is a need for significant advancement in energy in order to handle the future repetition performed by artificial intelligence technology. The agency also states that if Google alone were to widely integrate “generative AI” throughout its entire search, considering the nine billion daily search queries performed, such a move would require an additional 10 terawatt-hours of electricity annually.

In 2023, the company “Nvidia” shipped 100,000 artificial intelligence servers, which consume an average of 7.3 terawatts/hour annually. By 2026, the agency expects this sector to consume at least 10 times the demand in 2023.

The agency also estimated that renewable energy sources will generate over one-third of global energy supplies worldwide by 2025. Additionally, low-carbon sources will account for nearly half of the total global electricity generation by the end of 2026.