US data centers could consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035

A new BloombergNEF estimate, reported by TechCrunch, predicts that U.S. data centers could consume roughly 18 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by 2035 — a level the analysis says exceeds the current combined natural gas use of Germany and Japan. The forecast reflects recent changes in the industry and was adjusted downward to account for the fact that not every announced data center project will reach completion.

BloombergNEF identifies data centers as the second-strongest source of natural gas demand growth over the next decade, behind liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. The report separates two contributors: facilities that generate power onsite and those that draw electricity from the grid. Major cloud and social-media companies, including Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon, have announced plans for onsite natural-gas power plants that BNEF projects will consume between 2.9 and 3.4 billion cubic feet per day by 2035 — roughly equal to the gas used by all U.S. data centers today for both onsite generation and grid-supplied power.

Grid-connected data centers are expected to drive a substantially larger share of growth: BloombergNEF projects an additional 15 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas demand in the power sector by the middle of the next decade attributable to these facilities. The report says that represents about five times the demand growth through 2035 from all other grid-connected sectors combined.

Analysts warn those shifts could have market and climate consequences. Concerns have been raised that the combined impact of the data center buildout and rising LNG exports may lift natural gas prices, which would affect utility ratepayers even if large tech companies can absorb higher costs. On the climate side, the International Energy Agency’s lifecycle figure of roughly 60 grams of CO2-equivalent per cubic foot of natural gas implies the additional data-center demand would generate about 1 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each day — an amount the report equates to roughly 12% of current U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.