Data centers are expected to use one-fifth of the electricity generated in the US by 2035, four times more than today, according to a new report from BloombergNEF.

The report predicts that an increase in AI computing will increase data center capacity to nearly 200 gigawatts over the next decade. Nearly half of that capacity will be dedicated to training and inference, and most of it will remain concentrated in the U.S. By 2033, the country will host 64% of AI chips based on energy demand.

Based on previous forecasts, those figures could be conservative.

BloombergNEF’s new estimate for electricity demand in 2035 is 83% higher than what the consulting firm predicted in December. Other organizations have also raised their forecasts. EPRI, an electric industry nonprofit, has more than doubled its 2024 estimate, while S&P’s forecast rose by more than a third between October and April. The revisions reflect the feverish pace of data center development in the US.

Over the next decade, BloombergNEF expects most new data centers to impact already overloaded power grids. The PJM Interconnection, which stretches from Virginia to Illinois, will see 34% of its electricity go to data centers, while ERCOT, which covers most of Texas, will have to dedicate 22% of its generating capacity.

PJM, which already hosts a large number of the country’s data centers, has struggled to cope with connection requests from both large generators and large loads. It halted requests from new sources to connect to the network for four years, leaving it in a precarious position as demand continued to grow.

Although PJM reopened the queue for new generation sources in April, the situation has become so dire that one utility, American Electric Power, has threatened to pull out of the interconnection. The imbalance between supply and demand has driven up electricity prices by 76% over the past year.

Even with congestion, data centers still want to connect to PJM: They accounted for 38% of charges in the network manager’s most recent capacity auction.

Even though the United States claims the lion’s share of AI computing, data centers will continue to grow elsewhere. By 2033, if AI adoption continues on an aggressive trajectory, data centers will create 1,935 terawatt-hours of new electricity demand worldwide, almost as much as India uses annually.