The energy war of the 21st century isn’t about oil anymore

The article highlights a fundamental shift in the global energy landscape: the primary battleground has moved from oil to data centers, which now represent the critical infrastructure of the 21st century. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2025 outlook, global spending on data centers will reach $580 billion, surpassing investments in new oil supplies by $40 billion. This shift reflects the growing importance of digital economies and the massive electricity demands driven by AI technologies. AI server electricity consumption alone is expected to increase fivefold by 2030, doubling overall data center energy use, with the US, China, and Europe dominating both current capacity and future expansions. The rapid growth of data centers is straining existing power grids, which are struggling to keep pace with demand. While investments in renewable energy generation have increased significantly, grid infrastructure spending has lagged, causing long connection delays—up to seven years in major hubs like Northern Virginia and even longer in parts of Europe. This bottleneck highlights