According to a new report from the International Energy Agency, the world will spend $580 billion on data centers this year — $40 billion more than will be spent finding new oil supplies.
Those numbers help to illustrate some big shifts in the global economy, and comparing data centers and oil seems particularly apt given concerns about how generative AI might accelerate climate change.
Kirsten Korosec, Rebecca Bellan, and I discussed the report’s findings on the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast.
There’s no question that these new data centers are going to be hungry for power, and that they could place even more stress on already taxed electrical grids. But Kirsten pointed to a potential upside, with solar poised to power many of these new projects, which could also create new opportunities for startups pursuing innovative approaches to renewable energy.
We also discussed how these projects will be funded, with OpenAI saying it has committed $1.4 trillion to building data centers, Meta committing $600 billion, and Anthropic recently announcing a $50 billion data center plan.
You can read a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Kirsten: Here’s what I think is the potential upside. So Tim De Chant, who’s our climate tech reporter, has done a ton of reporting about not just data centers, but actually how a lot of data centers are turning to renewables because in terms of regulatory [hurdles] and cost, they are the go-to. It’s a lot easier to get a permit to throw up a bunch of solar panels adjacent to a data center.
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So to me, the one upside is that it could really mean a positive for any kind of company that is doing interesting things around renewables or data center design and some of the technology to reduce the global emissions component of it.
But of course, the sheer number to me is what really stood out. As a former energy reporter myself, I know how much is spent on trying to find new oil.
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