Running into a debacle: The mismatch between the EU’s AI ambition and its energy planning.

The Global Race for AI is on, and Europe is trying to play its part. However, there is a serious mismatch between data center capacity planning and energy supply planning in the EU.

• Despite ambitious plans, the EU risks falling further behind: China is on track to triple its data center capacity by 2030, and the United States to double, leaving Europe with significantly lower shares of global capacity

• EU data centers’ electricity demand is forecast to double over the next five years, from ∼80 and 168 TWh; the upper end of this range is equivalent to the entire electricity demand of a country such as Polandin2024. The share of total EU electricity demand absorbed by data centers will thus rise rapidly from around 2% in 2023 to around 5% in 2030.

• Covering the additional demand by data centers is only possible if the rest of the economy remains largely static. This is, however, unlikely, as the electricity demand in other sectors will increase as well, in particular in the housing market (heat pumps) and in the transportation sector (electric vehicles).

• The uncovered additional electricity demand of data centers by 2030 is substantial and equivalent to the 2024 net electricity consumption of countries like Belgium or Finland. Poor planning may thus leave the European Union in a dangerous trilemma: giving up on growth, net-zero goals, or on the AI race.

Kiel Institute Expert