FILE – Earth movers prepare a site for a 2.5 million square foot AI data center March 24, 2026, in Independence, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) For years we have been told that artificial intelligence will transform the world. Governments discuss it, universities teach it, investors fund it, and think tanks produce reports on its implications. Yet one basic question remains largely absent from these conversations: What if the future arrives, but not where we expect it?
Today, data centers worldwide consume roughly 415 terawatt hours of electricity annually less than 1.5 percent (almost 2 percent) of global demand. By 2030, according to the International Energy Agency, this figure is projected to reach approximately 945 terawatt hours. By 2035 the range could span from 700 to as many as 1,700 terawatt hours.
What began as a marginal share of global electricity use is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful drivers of new investment in generation and transmission infrastructure.
Global electricity consumption stands at approximately 28,000 terawatt hours per year. Demand is expected to rise by around 40 percent by 2035, with further substantial growth through 2045. This expansion is driven by the convergence of artificial intelligence, data centers, electrification of transport and heating, and advanced manufacturing. Unlike previous industrial revolutions, this wave has no obvious upper limit.
The critical distinction is not between those who desire this future and those who do not. It is between those capable of building the required infrastructure at the necessary speed and scale, and those who are not.
China already consumes around 9,500 terawatt hours annually and India exceeds 2,000. Together, they are expected to account for a dominant share of global electricity demand growth over the coming decade. The United States has emerged as the clearest near-term leader in data center capacity additions. Both demonstrate the ability and the political will to mobilize capital and deliver large-scale energy infrastructure at speed.
The 20th century was largely defined by a shortage of technology. The 21st century may instead be defined by a shortage of execution.
The West does not have a technology problem; the West does not have a capital problem; the West increasingly has an execution problem.
Drawing on more than three decades of experience developing and delivering major energy and infrastructure projects across Europe and North America both professionally and as part of my own business vision, I have repeatedly seen the same structural obstacles that now hinder large-scale initiatives critical to technological progress.
One of my current international transmission projects, the Aquind Interconnector (a proposed 2 gigawatt high-voltage link between the United Kingdom and France), helped bring this pattern into focus. What matters here is not the project itself, but what it reveals. Across both Europe and the U.S., whether the goal is new transmission infrastructure, power generation, industrial development or large-scale data center capacity, the same obstacles keep appearing: prolonged regulatory processes, local opposition, and institutional resistance that delay projects and drive up costs. The core brakes are NIMBYism (not in my backyard) at the local level and entrenched bureaucratic systems at the national level.
The future will not be determined by the quality of strategy documents or the ambition of climate frameworks. It will be determined by the physical reality of power stations, transmission lines, substations, and the supply chains that support them. Countries that can deliver new capacity at scale will capture disproportionate shares of the AI-driven economy. Those that cannot, whether due to regulatory complexity, political fragmentation, or institutional resistance — risk finding themselves increasingly marginalized.
This is becoming a contest between builders and debaters. What if China and India continue constructing the infrastructure required for the AI age, while much of the West remains locked in debates about process and perfect solutions?
The 2 percent that once seemed marginal may determine whether the next technological revolution belongs to those who invent it or to those who build the infrastructure required to power it.
Alexander Temerko is a global investor in the energy and IT sectors and council member of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
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