U.S. data centres could increase natural gas consumption to 18 billion cubic feet per day by 2035, surpassing the combined consumption of Germany and Japan, a forecast showed. The expansion of AI data centres could shake not only power grids but also the U.S. gas market, electricity bills and carbon emissions, the analysis said.

TechCrunch reported on Sept. 15 that BloombergNEF (BNEF) forecasts U.S. data centres will consume about 18 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2035, or about 597,032,238 cubic metres. That is almost double the estimate from just nine months earlier. BNEF said data centres will become the second-biggest driver of U.S. natural gas demand growth over the next decade, after liquefied natural gas exports.

Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon are building their own gas power generation facilities near data centres to avoid delays in connecting to the power grid. Gas consumption at such on-site generation data centres is forecast to reach 2.9 billion to 3.4 billion cubic feet per day by 2035, or about 82,118,855 to 96,277,278 cubic metres. BNEF analysed that if the pace of U.S. grid connections does not improve from current levels, on-site gas generation capacity of 48 gigawatts may be needed by 2035.

Bigger demand would come from grid-connected data centres. BNEF said data centres could add 15 billion cubic feet per day to gas consumption in the power sector by the mid-2030s, or about 424,752,698 cubic metres. That would be about five times the combined increase from all other grid-connected sectors.

The concern is prices and the environmental burden. If demand from data centres and LNG exports rises at the same time, U.S. natural gas prices could rise and some of the cost could be passed on to electricity bills. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said natural gas emits significant greenhouse gases not only in combustion but also in extraction, processing and transport. If current forecasts hold, the expansion of gas use for data centres alone could generate additional emissions of about 1 million tons of CO2e per day.

Competition over AI infrastructure appears to be spreading beyond servers and semiconductors into a structure that also pressures natural gas supply, generation facilities and electricity bills.