TrendForce forecasts global data-center power demand capacity will reach 161 gigawatts in 2026, up about 31% year-over-year, with AI servers driving an estimated 33.4% of that total and their share potentially exceeding 40% in 2027
TrendForce, a market research company, estimates that the global power demand capacity for data centers will reach 161 gigawatts in 2026. This represents an approximate 31% increase year-over-year from 122.9 gigawatts in 2025. AI servers are projected to drive this growth, accounting for an estimated 33.4% of the total demand capacity.
Verified 2026-09-22
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Global data-centre power needs are climbing fast, with AI servers taking a growing share.
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- American Electric Power, one of the largest US utilities, which counts hyperscalers and manufacturers among its new large customers, signed fresh load commitments in the third quarter of 2026 and now expects its contracted extra load to reach 84 GW by 2031 AEP signed 15 GW of new load commitments in a single quarter
- AI data centres worldwide reached a power capacity comparable to New York State at peak demand in 2025, which Stanford's AI Index puts at 29.6 gigawatts
- OpenAI does not disclose GPT-4o's resource footprint, so Stanford's 2026 AI Index Report turned to independent researchers' estimates of the water needed to cool the servers behind it — as much as 1.58 million kilolitres a year — more than 1.2 million people drink annually
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