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You have probably read –or heard– newsoutlets loudly complaining about how AI and its electricity demand will bring the Earth to the brink of destruction in the past couple of years. While the demand is raising to power data centers, the most wasteful consumption of electricity is happening right at home.
While most of the liberal West activists cry about planet Earth heating up due to an increase of data centers, few of them will give up their AC units. When asking an American citizen, they will probably deem their air conditioning system at home not a privilage, but a human right. In the mean time, most so called “third-world countries” keep doing without active AC units, and rely on passive ventilation systems ingrained in the arequitecture of their buildings and communities.
The real electricity-hungry technology
Unfortunately for AI and tech-advancement detractors, in 2022, air conditioning was already gulping down about 7% of the world’s electricity—and its appetite is only growing. Its strain on electrical infrastructure keeps intensifying year after year, making it less of a cool breeze and more of a power-hungry beast.
Meanwhile, data centers are expected to drive a 10% rise in energy demand by 2030. But here’s the twist: it’s not just the cloud burning through kilowatts. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a report from November 2024, AC units are likely to outconsume data centers in the not-so-distant future. Bottom line? It’s not the servers that are sweating the grid—it’s the ACs keeping us from doing the same.
The recent boom in artificial intelligence has sparked a surge in data centers across the globe—from the U.S. and China to Japan, Singapore, India, Germany, the Netherlands, and Ireland. But according to the IEA, their projections already factor in this digital expansion.
They’ve also accounted for the growing list of energy regulations that air conditioners are expected to meet. Still, as Casey Crownhart, a climate writer for MIT Technology Review, cleverly notes, there’s a catch: climate change isn’t exactly playing along. In fact, rising temperatures are turning air conditioners into double agents—keeping us cool while heating up the planet’s energy bills.
Cooling Is the Real Energy Hog on a Global Scale
Back in 2016, there were just under 2 billion air conditioning units humming along worldwide. Fast forward to 2050, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects that number to triple to a staggering 6 billion. That’s not just a cool trend—it’s a full-blown cold front.
What’s behind this surge? The culprit is the rising number of cooling degree days, a measure of how much we need to crank the AC as the planet heats up. In 2024, those cooling degree days were 6% higher than in 2023, and a frosty 20% above the average for the first two decades of this century. In other words, global warming isn’t just turning up the heat—it’s plugging in more ACs than ever before.
The countries pouring the most energy into air conditioning are also the three most crowded corners of the world: India, China, and the United States. But the impact of all that cooling isn’t staying local—it’s a global energy headache.
And it’s not just about how much electricity AC units use. The when matters just as much. In the U.S., air conditioning can make up as much as 70% of electricity use during the hottest parts of the day. That’s not just peak heat—it’s peak demand, and it puts the grid under serious pressure.
This kind of usage turns the power grid into a tightrope walker, struggling to stay balanced while temperatures rise and fall. And while cooler evenings offer some relief, the strain doesn’t just vanish.
That’s why innovation in cooling technology is more important than ever. With AC units expected to multiply like popsicles at a pool party, it’s crucial that each new device sips power instead of guzzling it. Even tiny improvements in energy efficiency, multiplied across millions (or billions) of units, could spell a huge win for the grid—and for the planet. Because when it comes to cooling, every watt counts.
However, new cooling tech is on the rise. Desiccant cooling systems, for example, rely on materials that pull moisture from the air, helping to cool spaces more efficiently than traditional methods.
Meanwhile, heat exchangers—found not just in AC units but also in fridges and heat pumps—are getting smarter and more energy-efficient with each new design. If there’s a path forward, this looks like it. With a little luck and a lot of innovation, technology might just help us tackle this towering challenge.
