How much heat does an AI data centre produce, and where are they located?

Published 11 June 2026 · tech

Data centres don’t just use large amounts of water and electricity, they’re heating the environment too, study finds. Tech giants are racing to build the

Data centres don’t just use large amounts of water and electricity, they’re heating the environment too, study finds. Tech giants are racing to build the infrastructure that powers artificial intelligence. But a growing body of evidence suggests that AI hyperscalers – large-scale cloud service providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft – are warming the ground around them as well. A study [PDF] by Cambridge-led researchers found that land surface temperatures around AI data centres rise by an average of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), with some areas recording increases as high as 9C (16.2F). Researchers have called this the “data heat island effect”. Al Jazeera explains what that is, where AI data centres are concentrated and the effects on those living near these facilities. How much energy do AI data centres use? Every time someone uses ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, the request is handled in a data centre, a vast facility full of specialised computers that run 24 hours a day. AI data centres use powerful chips that perform thousands of calculations in parallel and running large models continuously makes them much more energy hungry than typical servers used to browse the web. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data centres consumed about 415 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in 2024, about 1.5 percent of global supply, growing at about 15 percent a year over the last five years.

That figure is projected to nearly double to 945 TWh by 2030. Among the most energy-intensive are hyperscale data centres – the largest facilities of their kind, built by major tech companies to support cloud computing and AI at a global scale. According to IBM, they typically house at least 5,000 servers and occupy a minimum of 10,000sq feet (930sq metres). Hyperscale data centres typically require between 100 and 300 megawatts of electricity to operate (continuously at any given second), enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes. That energy generates enormous amounts of heat, which must be managed through advanced liquid cooling systems that consume vast quantities of water. A report by the UK government’s digital sustainability advisory body found that a single 100-megawatt hyperscale data centre can consume about 2.5 billion litres (660 million gallons) of water a year – equivalent to the annual needs of 80,000 people. Data centre building boom The global landscape for AI data centre construction is currently experiencing an unprecedented acceleration, with more than 11,600 data centres active worldwide as of June 2026. Most data centres are located in the United States, which has more than 4,300 according to Data Center Map, a crowdsourced database that tracks data centre locations worldwide.