A report predicts that servers dedicated to artificial intelligence workloads in data centres will consume more electricity than conventional (non-AI) servers by 2027. This matters because it signals how rapidly the AI boom is reshaping global energy demand, with implications for power grids, running costs and the environmental footprint of computing.

The forecast reflects the surge in specialised, power-hungry AI hardware being installed across data centres to train and run large models. As this equipment proliferates, its combined electricity draw is expected to overtake that of the traditional servers that have long handled general computing tasks, marking a notable shift in where data-centre power is being spent.