Electricity, water, local consent and national competitiveness are turning compute infrastructure into a policy fight.
Pause construction or upgrading of covered AI data centres until Congress enacts specified safeguards and expressly terminates the moratorium.
Maintain public, method-stated projections of data-centre and AI-focused electricity demand for grid and infrastructure planning.
A House bill proposing a conditional moratorium on construction or upgrading of covered AI data centres.
IEA analytical report updating data-centre electricity demand growth for 2025 and projections to 2030.
The IEA released updated analysis of data-centre electricity demand growth and 2030 projections.
H.R. 9442 was introduced and referred to House committees.
The bill would stop construction or upgrading of covered facilities until specified safeguards are enacted and Congress expressly ends the pause.
The construction or upgrading of new or existing artificial intelligence data centers may not commence or proceed until—Congress.gov · H.R. 9442 · Section 3(b)
The bill directs the Energy Secretary to publish facility-level information on water, energy, emissions, labour and other impacts.
The Secretary of Energy shall— (A) submit to Congress quarterly reports on artificial intelligence data centers; and (B) make those quarterly reports publicly available.Congress.gov · H.R. 9442 · Section 3(c)(1)
The IEA executive summary states global data-centre electricity demand grew 17% in 2025 and AI-focused centres grew 50%.
The global electricity demand of data centres – the critical infrastructure for training and running AI models – grew by 17% in 2025, in line with IEA projections. Electricity consumption from AI-focused data centres grew even faster, surging 50% in 2025.International Energy Agency · IEA Key Questions on Energy and AI · Executive summary
The IEA central projection roughly doubles data-centre electricity from 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030.
Our updated projections see electricity consumption from data centres roughly doubling from 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030, accounting for around 3% of global electricity demand by that date.International Energy Agency · IEA Key Questions on Energy and AI · Executive summary
H.R. 9442 introduces a direct growth-control ask into Congress. Its significance lies less in near-term passage than in linking AI capacity to electricity, water and national-security constraints.
The IEA’s Key Questions on Energy and AI executive summary reports 17% growth in data-centre electricity demand in 2025 and 50% growth for AI-focused centres, with a central projection near 950 TWh by 2030.