BNEF: US data centers may use 20% of electricity in 2035, Bitcoin mining companies will accelerate the shift to AI computing power

Comparing news, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)'s latest forecast shows that by 2035, the electricity consumption of US data centers will account for about 20% of the country's total electricity consumption, a sharp increase from the current level of about 5.9%. The agency raised its 2035 data center power demand estimate to 106 GW, which is 36% higher than its forecast of 78 GW in April this year. Currently, the US data center has an operating capacity of about 40 GW, accounting for about 3.5%-4% of the country's electricity demand, and under the BNEF benchmark scenario, this share will reach 8.6% by 2035. The high growth model of the American Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) indicates that if the combined effects of cryptocurrency mining and AI computing power are taken into account, the upper limit of this ratio also points to 20%.

Facing the explosive growth in demand for AI computing power, Bitcoin mining companies are actively transforming. Companies such as Core Scientific and Riot Platforms have partnered with tech giants such as AWS and Google to transform the original mine into an AI data center. Currently, Bitcoin mining companies have locked in about 6 GW of electricity capacity, which is expected to expand to 12 GW by 2027. Some analysts estimate that about 20% of the mining companies' computing power production capacity will shift to AI loads at that time. According to data from Texas power grid operator ERCOT, data centers already account for about 90% of local heavy applications, and a large number of sites originally used for crypto mining are being re-planned as AI computing power facilities. This trend is also directly reflected in the capital market. Core Scientific reached a partnership with AI cloud service provider CoreWeave after getting out of bankruptcy, and the stock price rebounded significantly.