OPEN VARIABLE
The visual brief
The bottleneck after the chip: a visual explanation.
Transcript
0–7 seconds. Global data-centre electricity demand: 485 TWh in 2025, an estimate; 950 TWh in 2030, a projection. Source: IEA, Key Questions on Energy and AI, April 2026.
7–14 seconds. A forecast has no street address. Power connection, system commissioning and commercial use are different milestones. The sequence shown is illustrative, not a measured project timeline.
14–20 seconds. An order starts a chain. It does not finish it. Capital, power, systems and workloads need to meet.
20–25 seconds. Watch the handoffs: connection date, commissioning record and operating data. Aggregate demand does not establish an individual delivery date.
Data, method and rights
The bars use a common zero baseline and scale. Animated interpolation is a visual transition, not an intermediate-year forecast. All diagrams after the demand chart are explanatory constructions. No project-level observations are presented.
IEA executive summary → · April 2026 · CC BY 4.0. Data labels and the original visual explanation are by OPEN VARIABLE; IEA has not endorsed this interpretation.