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A natural follow-up to the CBRE brief on data centers’ economic impact featured in this space last week comes from a study released by EPRI last Wednesday that finds “data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030 — more than double the amount currently used.” The culprit? AI can give you the answer and be the answer, tracing back in part to the day 18 months ago when OpenAI’s ChatGPT was unleashed.
“AI queries require approximately 10 times the electricity of traditional internet searches and the generation of original music, photos and videos requires much more,” says the non-profit energy R&D organization. “With 5.3 billion internet users, rapid adoption of these new tools could increase power demands substantially. At the same time, computing facilities are becoming more concentrated, with single facilities now requesting power consumption that can range from the equivalent of 80,000 to 800,000 homes, exacerbating power delivery challenges.”
Look to the July issue of Site Selection for exclusive analysis by Timmons Group Economic Development Practice Leader Joe Hines examining how hyperscale data center users may seek to fulfill their power and water needs.
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