The IEA's base case projects global data-centre electricity consumption will more than double to around 945 TWh by 2030, growing roughly 15% per year from 2024 — reaching just under 3% of global electricity demand. The AI trade is migrating from chips and software into power, grid, cooling and land.
Commercial insight
The investable opportunity may migrate from public AI equities into physical bottlenecks: power generation, grid upgrades, substations, cooling, land, water, transmission, fibre and real estate. The asset managers that can package AI infrastructure for pensions, sovereign funds and insurers may become the next major capital-formation winners.
Allocator insight
Universal owners may already be heavily exposed to AI through public equities. The second-order question is whether they also own the infrastructure required to make the AI economy physically possible — and whether that infrastructure is being priced as a technology bet or as long-duration real assets.
Source: International Energy Agency, Energy and AI (2025).