Data Centres: Digitalisation Powerhouse and Energy Efficiency Potential

Key Messages

• The digitalisation of the economy worldwide and technological innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI), internet-of-things (IoT) and blockchain are driving exponential growth in the demand for data centres’ services.
• Data centres use approximately 200 TWh of electricity annually, corresponding to roughly 1% of global electricity demand.
• To curb the rapid growth in the energy use of data centres, it is key that the future demand for data centres’ services will be met by energy-efficient data centres and that their uptake of renewable energy is accelerated.
• Policy-makers should establish robust mechanism to collect data and publish statistics on the energy use of data centres, similarly to what has been done for other energy-intensive sectors.

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