AI Boom to Quadruple China’s Data Centre Power Demand to 774 TWh by 2030: Study

China is currently witnessing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom, which Wood Mackenzie forecasts will quadruple data-centre electricity consumption to 774 TWh by 2030. The growth is expected to be driven largely by the rapid expansion of AI workloads, resulting in a structural increase in computing-related power demand. Chinese data centre demand is being shaped by the rapid AI workloads growth and robust national policy directives. Based on the findings in The Rewiring China’s Grid for the AI Era report, data centres could account for 17% of China’s total electricity consumption by 2060. One of the key findings of the report is the strong association between the growth of AI training and the need for more energy-intensive infrastructure. At the same time, the rapid expansion of AI inference is creating a growing base of sustained electricity demand. Together, these trends are expected to keep data-centre power consumption rising even as broader electricity-demand growth in China moderates, Wood Mackenzie noted. Emphasising this, Wanting Zhao, research analyst, Asia Pacific power and renewables research at Wood Mackenzie, said that data centres are becoming an increasingly important part of China’s energy system. He anticipates AI will drive sustained growth in computing demand, access to reliable, cost-competitive and lower-carbon electricity, and help determine where and how new data-centre capacity is developed. It associates this growth with a government policy push under its 15th Five-Year Plan , which is not only driving massive capacity expansion through strategic national targets but also promoting "compute-power synergy." To operationalise this, recent energy policies are driving the direct supply of green power and the adoption of more flexible computing loads. From “Power Follows Compute” to “Compute Follows Power” Historically, data centres have followed computing demand, clustering around major cities and technology hubs to access customers, skilled labour, network infrastructure, and low-latency connectivity. However, China’s AI expansion is now adding another consideration, i.e., the availability of abundant, reliable, and low-carbon electricity. This is accelerating a shift towards a “compute follows power” model, particularly for latency-tolerant workloads. Renewable-rich regions in western China offer abundant land and growing renewable generation capacity, creating opportunities to locate power-intensive AI training, batch processing, and data-storage workloads closer to electricity sources. Eastern demand centres are likely to retain an important role for latency-sensitive applications such as AI inference and financial services. This is creating an emerging division of labour between eastern computing demand centres and western, power-rich computing hubs. Wood Mackenzie expects eight national hubs to remain the dominant centres of China’s computing capacity through 2060, although grid constraints and continued growth in renewable generation are likely to support the gradual expansion of computing capacity in renewable-rich locations outside the designated hubs. Data Centres Become More Flexible Load Resources The data center would also get support from new power architectures, like battery storage, and intelligent workload scheduling to transform data centres into demand-side flexibility providers, Wood Mackenzie noted. For workloads that do not require immediate processing, computing demand can be shifted towards periods of abundant renewable generation or lower electricity prices, giving computing loads significant temporal elasticity. This flexibility could allow data centres to move beyond their traditional role as passive baseloads and become a more active component of China’s evolving power system. As renewable generation expands, data centres can act as strategic demand sinks, absorbing curtailed renewable energy in oversupplied regions. Zhao made a noteworthy point on ensuring data security as an important component of managing data centers. He concluded that the next challenge extends far beyond physical grid planning. Adding further, he said that "To truly unlock compute-power synergy, the industry must address data security and SLA concerns during cross-regional migration, stimulate the willingness of operators and tenants to actively participate, and implement targeted mechanisms to alleviate the heavy initial CAPEX burden. The direction of travel is clear: computing is beginning to follow power, but our commercial, security, and institutional architectures must urgently evolve to make this commercially viable."