IDCA: The Global Data Centre Sector’s Latest Energy Trends

Not long ago, data centres were a thing rarely discussed outside of IT departments. 

In 2026, however, they are headline news, thanks in large part to the rise of AI.

AI has made data centres one of the defining forces in global energy markets. The International Data Center Authority's (IDCA) 2026 Global Energy Report puts a number on just how far that shift has gone.

Today, the world's data centres consume 67.7GW of electricity, a figure that represents 1.9% of all global generation, up from 1.7% a year earlier.

And while that percentage may sound insignificant at first glance, the rate at which it is growing is not, especially when you look closer at the world’s data centre hubs.

The US, for instance, is now responsible for 43% of the sector's global energy use, with its data centres now drawing 6% of the country's entire electricity supply.

The growing ubiquity of AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini is a central part of this story.

The electricity consumption of AI data centres grew by 50% in 2025 alone, a pace of growth few other industries can match.

What’s more, that upwards trajectory is not expected to level off any time soon, with the IEA projecting that annual global data centre power consumption will reach roughly 945TWh by 2030 – more than double today's levels.

For Mehdi Paryavi, Founder, Chairman and CEO of the IDCA, the report's purpose is to move beyond the headline growth figures and identify where the world still has room to build.

“The report outlines the consumption of electricity by the world's nations and shows a global footprint of 2%, or 67.7GW,” he says.

“It outlines the extent of energy and highlights the countries with the strongest commitments to renewable energy and those that still have strong potential for data centre development at the moment, in the face of numerous global power constraints.”

The sovereignty shift

The report's central argument is that utility grids can no longer be relied upon as the default power source for gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure.

It points to June 2026 orders from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which directed regional transmission organisations to build tariffs accommodating co-location and behind-the-meter generation.

The result, the IDCA argues, is a shift from data centres as passive “toll-payers” on the grid to what it calls “sovereign power” operators generating and buffering their own supply.

Ireland, where data centres already consume a fifth of the country’s electricity, is already moving to regulate data centres in this way.

Dublin ended its multi-year moratorium in December 2025 through a new Large Energy Users Connection Policy, which forces new facilities to bring their own generation and meet 80% of demand through additional renewable projects within six years.

Asked whether bring-your-own-power is now the industry's future, Mehdi is cautious.

“Bring-your-own-power is surely the message in many parts of the world, but it is only feasible and viable if you are already a credible, stable and attractive enough data centre destination,” he explains.

“It will not work for regions or economies that are trying to become future digital hubs of the world or to build global trust to attract AI and data centre development investment.”

The demand for clean energy

Renewables now supply 29.6% of global electricity, with nuclear adding a further 8.9%, taking the low-carbon total to 38.6%.

However, that is still not enough to meet demand, which is why IDCA highlights bridging technologies including small modular reactors, hydrogen fuel cells, liquefied natural gas and battery energy storage systems.

Notable nuclear deals cited in the report include Google's agreement for 500MW from Kairos Power and Microsoft's 20-year contract with Constellation Energy to revive the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

The report also flags the issue of energy efficiency among the world’s data centres.

An estimated 13% of US data centre power (more than 3GW) is currently spent on “zombie” applications that were never properly decommissioned. For context, that is roughly equivalent to the output of three nuclear reactors.

Asked whether grid planners underestimated AI's power appetite, Mehdi argues that this was less a failure of foresight than a mismatch of timescales.

“Utilities have long planning and construction cycles, and they can't just build out massive new facilities that are underused,” he says.

“But utilities have got the message that we've entered a new economic era; we anticipate that over the long term they will catch up. But the short- to medium-term will be characterised by constraints in many regions and nations.”

Goldilocks nations and the emissions gap

The IDCA has identified 41 so-called ‘Goldilocks’ nations, spanning Colombia, Malaysia, Brazil, Romania and Kenya among others, which it believes sit in the optimal band of its Digital Readiness Index for new digital infrastructure.

A further 27 developed nations have headroom to absorb at least 1GW of new capacity without new generation investment, including the likes of China, India and Russia.

Emissions are the harder problem, though.

The IDCA's Emissions Reduction Challenge index places China, the US, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico, which together produce over 60% of global emissions, in its most severe category.

Looking towards the end of the decade, Mehdi believes that success will be less about gigawatt totals and more about economic outcomes.

“Success will be found by the level of achievement of these companies and their ability to drive positive economic growth in the countries they serve,” he says, adding that nations slow to plan for the AI era risk becoming irrelevant on the global stage.

The bottom line

What emerges from IDCA's report is a sector outgrowing the grids it depends on, faster than most planners anticipated.

The financial stakes are considerable, with delayed 100MW deployments alone estimated to cost operators upwards of US$10,000 per megawatt per day in lost revenue.

Whether Ireland's bring-your-own-power model, sovereign generation deals or waste-heat recovery schemes prove durable will depend heavily on local politics as much as engineering.