U.S. data center server electricity use surges by 2050

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that electricity consumed by data center servers will increase across the commercial building stock, with substantially larger growth in standalone data centers by 2050.

• Main projection: The EIA’s AEO2026 projects server consumption will reach 446 billion kilowatthours (BkWh) to 818 BkWh by 2050, with servers accounting for 22%–33% of commercial building electricity use by 2050 and standalone data centers (other buildings category) reaching 581 BkWh in the High Electricity Demand case. The report also states servers were ~7% of commercial sector electricity consumption in 2025.
• Modeling details and assumptions: AEO2026 separates data center server electricity use from broader commercial computing, assumes a nearly flat hourly load shape for servers, models a 10% reduction in average annual operational power draw every three years after 2040 in the Counterfactual Baseline case (but no such efficiency improvement in the High Electricity Demand case), and assumes space cooling for data center floorspace can be up to 2.9 times more energy intensive than non-data center floorspace. The AEO2026 release date was April 8, 2026, and its baseline generally reflects laws and regulations as of December 2025.