Amount of electricity needed to power world’s data centres expected to double in five years

The amount of electricity needed to power the world’s data centres is expected to double in the next five years, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). It will come as racks of servers hosting the latest AI models and cloud computing services use three times more electricity than the UK each year, the agency added. The rise in demand, predicted to be highly concentrated around the world’s tech and population hubs, will put pressure on utility companies, grid infrastructure and the planet. Image: Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA “AI is one of the biggest stories in the…