Electricitypublished as isOutside the levels infrastructureInfrastructure, outside the levelsInfrastructure18 entriesFigures published by others, reproduced as they are; they cut across the territories without adding to them.Database structure 
6Territories
5Organisations
4Occupations and activities
3Uses
2Machine operations
1Calculation factorsData centres, China
The electricity of all data centres in China, the second-largest fleet in the world after the United States.
- The figure covers the servers, storage, network and cooling of the country's data centres.
- This total covers all uses of data centres; it does not measure AI's share alone.
- Out of scope: users' devices and hardware manufacturing.
Sentence to citeData centres, China: 100 TWh of electricity, figure published by the IEA.
Origin of the value
About 70% of their electricity comes from coal, according to the IEA.
Comparison with other infrastructure entries
Characteristics
| Unit | 1 year |
|---|---|
| Location | not applicable: a published total does not depend on the location of the servers |
| Counted | the servers, storage, network and cooling of the country's data centres |
| Not counted | users' devices and hardware manufacturing |
| Status | published, 1 reading with the same scope |
All the characteristics
| Identifier | IA-0111, projetcelsius.com/en/ai/database/IA-0111/ |
|---|---|
| Version | 0.3 of 2 November 2026 |
| Category | Infrastructure, published as is |
| Choice of the selected value | value taken as it stands from its source, without calculation |
| Sources | IEA, 2025 |
| Compared with | Chip manufacturing (984 GWh), Data centres, Ireland (7.66 TWh), Meta (18.4 TWh), Microsoft (37 TWh), Google (43.6 TWh) |
| Licence | CC BY 4.0 |
Sources of the calculation
1 publication, for this entry and those used to calculate it, with the chosen parameters.
Energy and factors
The references of the selected values and of the entries used in this calculation.
IEA · April 2025
Role and limits : IEA
Author. International Energy Agency
What the publication covers. the world's data centres
Reading by the database. The reference for the big picture
Reference of the selected value
Scope of the figure used. China, 2024, all data centres
Limit. The agency's estimate; an increase of about 175 TWh is expected by 2030 in its base scenario
Published values
1 figure for the same quantity, each within its own scope.
| Source | Date | Electricity | What the figure measures | Scope | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data centres, Chinaselected by the database, v0.3 | 2026 | 100 TWh | the value selected by the database | same scope | published |
| IEA, Energy and AI ↗Energy and AI | Apr. 2025 | 100 TWh | China, 2024, all data centres | same scope | estimated |
The published figures do not all count the same scope; the scope of each figure is written next to it. Why do the estimates diverge?
Methodology conventions
With their alternatives
| The rule | a published total is reproduced as is, with its year and scope; it is not converted with an average factor and does not add to the database's calculations |
|---|---|
| Calculate a case without an entry | The formula, the default values and a step-by-step example |
Uses in the hub
Charts, figures, analyses and articles that cite this entry
History
Entry in version 0.3 of 2 November 2026, in the database in version 0.4
- 2 November 2026Title : Data centres in China becomes Data centres in China, in 2024.The year of the data appears in the title, and so in the citable sentence and on the card.
- 2 November 2026Designation : Data centres in China, in 2024 becomes Data centres, China, 2024.More precise designation: the object first, the specification after the comma, the quantity or period at the end; the former title remains searchable.
- 2 November 2026Designation : Data centres, China, 2024 becomes Data centres, China.The year becomes a variant, and leaves the name.
- 2 November 2026Address : centres-de-donnees-chine-2024 becomes centres-de-donnees-chine.The year leaves the address; keep the old one in the redirects.
- 1st November 2026Creation : version 0.1.Entry added: data centres in China, IEA estimate for 2024.
- 31 October 2026Creation of the database, in its first version (0.1).
