Eseandre Mordi
⬤ Global data center electricity demand is skyrocketing. New figures from DataCenterHawk reveal that facilities consuming over 25 gigawatts (GW) of power are currently being built, while another 128 GW sit in the planning pipeline. If everything goes ahead as scheduled, we're looking at total usage that could hit nearly three times what California uses at peak demand.
⬤ The numbers tell a dramatic story. Construction activity reached 25.3 GW by September 2025, but it's the planned capacity that really stands out—128.4 GW waiting in the wings. Combined, that's 153.7 GW of potential power demand, a figure that exceeds the entire peak electricity consumption of countries like Japan and France. This isn't gradual growth anymore—it's an explosion in compute infrastructure.
⬤ That 128 GW in the planning stage represents a five-fold jump from previous years, showing just how aggressively energy development is racing to keep up with AI and data center expansion. This build-out is being described as an "arms race," with electricity demand becoming the defining bottleneck of the AI era.
⬤ The takeaway is clear: artificial intelligence and electricity are now inseparably linked. When planned power use rivals entire nations' peak demand, you know this sector's growth will dominate economic and policy conversations for years to come.
Eseandre Mordi
