TECH & AI
GPUs, are already pushing past 100kW, with projections showing a climb towards 600kW by 2027. This has created a clear divergence in the market. Bruce Owen, President EMEA at Equinix, recently predicted an accelerating trend of“ two streams of data centres for differing workloads,” separating legacy IT from the new, high-density AI stream that will command the industry’ s future.
As the function changes, so do the metrics of success.“ Efficiency will rule,” declared Chris Sharp, CTO of Digital Realty, told Data Centre Magazine earlier this year.“ As AI capabilities begin to normalise, the focus will be on how efficiently AI workloads can run. Tokens per watt per dollar will be the new standard … The ability to deploy the newest AI hardware, which will increasingly require water cooling … will be critical.”
The gigawatt problem: A looming power deficit The industry’ s most immediate barrier is its access to power. A Deloitte survey released this year found power capacity to be the single greatest obstacle to development, with 72 % of executives calling it“ very or extremely challenging.” The projected numbers explain why. In the United States alone, power demand from data centres is forecast to grow from 33 gigawatts( GW) last year to 176 GW by 2035. AI is the driver, expected to account for 123 GW of that future demand. To put that figure in context, 123 GW is significantly more than the entire current power-generating capacity of the United Kingdom.
This pressure is not just technical but political. In the UK, for instance, the government’ s AI Action Plan, unveiled in January, is pushing for leadership in the AI industry. Yet, as Vivek notes, this ambition is already meeting friction, with major tech firms lobbying the government for“ fair electricity pricing” – a recognition that national strategy is useless without affordable, available power at scale. This feeds into a growing focus on data residency, or‘ sovereign cloud,’ as customers increasingly demand that their data be stored and processed in-country, adding another layer of complexity to site selection.
122 August 2025