AI’s Electricity Demand Is Not the Real Problem. Its Inflexibility Is

The electricity demand created by artificial intelligence is usually presented as a simple supply problem. AI requires increasingly large data centers, those facilities consume enormous amounts of electricity, and utilities must somehow build enough power plants to serve them. The numbers appear to support the alarm. Data centers consumed around 485 terawatt-hours of electricity globally in 2025. The International Energy Agency expects this to rise to approximately 950 TWh by 2030, while consumption from AI-focused facilities could triple. Some…