AI Energy Consumption Index: Q2 2025 Edition

Global data centre electricity reached an estimated 485 TWh in 2025, with AI workloads driving 20–25% of that total and growing 50% year-on-year. This edition of the AI Energy Consumption Index sets out transparent, evidence-based estimates for the leading AI models and services, benchmarks UK demand against international peers, and projects the electricity trajectory to 2035 under three scenarios.

• Global data centre electricity reached ~485 TWh in 2025 (1.6% of global demand); AI is now 20–25% of that total.
• Under the IEA Base Case, global data centre demand could reach 945–950 TWh by 2030 — roughly Japan's annual consumption.
• Inference has overtaken training as the dominant AI electricity driver, led by ~2.5 billion daily ChatGPT queries.
• UK data centres used ~5–6 TWh in 2023–2024 (~2% of demand); Oxford Economics projects 26.2 TWh by 2030 (8.8%).
• UK grid-connection offers for demand-side projects jumped from 41 GW to 125 GW between late 2024 and mid-2025 — network capacity, not capital, is now the binding constraint.

• Policymakers, regulators and DESNZ / Ofgem analysts
• Data centre operators, hyperscalers and grid planners
• AI companies, cloud providers and semiconductor investors
• Sustainability, ESG and net-zero leads at UK enterprises
• Journalists and researchers covering AI's energy footprint

1. 011. Executive summary and key findings — Q2 2025
2. 022. Methodology — how AI electricity estimates are calculated
3. 033. Executive dashboard — regional demand and service benchmarks
4. 044. State of AI — adoption timeline and market structure
5. 055. Electricity profiles — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Meta AI, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek
6. 066. Image generation — Midjourney and Stable Diffusion
7. 077. Model comparison — efficiency by class, open-source vs proprietary
8. 088. Data centres — AI server deployments, cooling and grid impacts
9. 099. Electricity trends 2020–2025 and quarterly peak demand
10. 1010. Water consumption — cooling systems and regional impacts
11. 1111. Carbon footprint — Scope 2, renewables and net-zero commitments
12. 1212. International comparison — UK, US, EU, China, Japan, Singapore, Middle East
13. 1313. Electricity demand forecast to 2035 — three scenarios
14. 1414. Industry analysis — semiconductors, nuclear, renewables and grid flexibility
15. 1515. Key risks and opportunities
16. 1616. Recommendations — government, energy companies, AI developers, cloud providers and investors
17. 1717. Glossary, references and detailed methodology appendices