Global demand for electricity for data centers is expected to grow by 16% per year through 2028 — a rate 33% faster than that recorded between 2020 and 2023.
Total consumption is expected to reach around 130 GW by the end of the period, with global investments that could exceed the US$ 1,8 trillion mark.
The data are part of the study “Breaking Barriers to Data Center Growth”, prepared by the consultancy BCG (Boston Consulting Group) — a world reference in strategies for large corporations and public institutions.
According to the report, the main factor for this expansion is the accelerated growth in the use of AI (artificial intelligence) in the corporate environment.
The study highlights that Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google are expected to lead this expansion, ing for 60% of the projected growth and increasing their share of energy demand from 35% to 45% by 2028.
Companies with their own facilities (corporate players) are expected to see their share drop from 10% to 5% as they continue to migrate their data to the cloud.
Another relevant point of the study is the increase in the average size of data centers in United States, which should jump from 40 MW to 60 MW by 2028.
According to BCG, this evolution is driven by economies of scale and the specific technical demands of GenAI, which require large-scale parallel processing and ultra-fast communication between servers.
Despite the growth scenario, the study warns of relevant challenges that may limit the expansion of the sector, such as the availability of hardware specialized, bottlenecks in infrastructure energy and supply chains global still under pressure.
Expansion of data centers in Brazil
Although the United States is ing a large share of global data centers, the BCG study identified that countries like Brazil have the potential to benefit from this growing demand due to good data connectivity, strategic geographic position and high proportion of renewable energy.
However, factors such as high tax burden and bureaucracy can make it difficult to attract investments. Recently, the Federal Government announced a plan to transform Brazil into a global data center hub, with tax incentives and legal security, with the expectation of attracting up to R$2 trillion in investments over the next decade.
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