Data centers in China are expected to quadruple their power consumption by the end of this decade; a trend driven mainly by the rapid growth in AI-related workloads that could push these facilities' energy use beyond the current electricity needs of South Korea.
Wood Mackenzie said in a report published Tuesday that data centers in China will consume about 774 terawatt-hours of electricity by 2030. That equates to roughly 6 percent of China's projected total electricity consumption, and that share is estimated to rise to 17 percent by 2060.
Bloomberg reported that the rapid expansion of AI highlights the challenges facing China and other countries to increase electricity generation capacity and meet rising energy demand. This issue comes as large-scale data center development has become controversial in the United States due to very high energy and water consumption.
AI is changing where China's data centers are located
Wood Mackenzie said that China's data centers have traditionally been concentrated near major cities and technology hubs, but the rapid expansion of AI is shifting the country toward a model known as "energy-based computing."
China's sparsely populated western regions have vast land and growing renewable energy generation capacity. This presents opportunities to build data centers closer to energy sources.
Wanting Zhao, Wood Mackenzie's renewable energy analyst for the Asia-Pacific region, said that as demand for AI-related computing continues to grow, access to reliable, low-cost and low-emission electricity will become a very important factor in determining where new data centers are developed.