Data centers are the busy nerve centers of the digital economy. In an increasingly interconnected and electrified world, these hubs power everything from search engines, e-commerce platforms, to credit card processing.

Thanks to the stable growth of cloud service providers (CSPs) and the revolutionary development of artificial intelligence (AI), the data center market is experiencing unprecedented prosperity. The scale, scope, and processing power of these data centers are expanding exponentially to meet the growing demand.

Artificial intelligence requires far more computing power than traditional cloud computing capabilities, which puts enormous pressure on servers and local power grids. Taking processing a regular ChatGPT query as an example, the required electricity is more than 10 times that of conducting a Google search.

Ten years ago, a 30 megawatt data center was seen as a behemoth. Now, when a company announces the construction of a 300 megawatt data center, people have become accustomed to it, “said Harry Handsin, head of ABB’s US data division.” And with the push of artificial intelligence, 1 gigawatt data centers have become the norm.

The world’s largest leading technology companies are expected to invest up to $1 trillion in new data centers over the next five years. This rapid expansion is triggering an unprecedented surge in demand for electricity.

Data centers currently account for only slightly over 1% of global electricity consumption, and it is expected that by 2030, the digitalization process will double this number. The energy consumption of a 50 megawatt data center can rival that of a small town. Ensuring reliable access to high-quality electricity and ensuring uninterrupted operation of data centers around the clock is crucial.

This means that data center operators need to upgrade their infrastructure to ensure a continuous, reliable, and resilient power supply to cope with the surge in data demand.

The artificial intelligence phenomenon we see is similar to the space race, “Handlin added.” This is a sprint and competition to quickly activate the most power assets to establish standards

ABB’s leading solution portfolio for electrification helps data center customers around the world tackle current and future energy challenges, including continuous operation and energy efficiency.