According to BloombergNEF's September 2026 report, US data centres could become one of the largest consumers of natural gas in the world by 2035.
The projection is roughly 18 billion cubic feet a day. That figure exceeds the combined consumption of Germany and Japan.
A forecast that doubled in nine months
What is striking is not the number itself but how fast it grew. The same firm's forecast nine months earlier was close to half of it.
A revision on that scale shows how quickly the assumptions behind the projection go stale. Compute demand driven by AI is moving faster than energy planning is used to.
How the numbers break down
The report separates consumption into two headings: grid-connected facilities and facilities generating their own power onsite.
| Item | Daily consumption |
|---|---|
| Increase at grid-connected facilities, 2035 | 15 billion cubic feet |
| Onsite-powered facilities, 2035 | 2.9-3.4 billion cubic feet |
| Onsite generation today | 2.9-3.4 billion cubic feet |
The third row offers an interesting comparison: what onsite-powered facilities consume today is comparable to the total consumption of all data centres. The growth is expected on the grid side.
The distinction matters in practice too. A grid-connected facility loads existing infrastructure; a facility building its own plant creates a new gas consumer outright. The regulatory treatment of the two is not the same either.
The climate side
According to the International Energy Agency, burning one cubic foot of natural gas releases the equivalent of about 60 grams of carbon dioxide.
On that rate, the additional data centre demand amounts to roughly 1 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution a day. The report puts that at around 12 percent of current total US emissions.
Why gas
Data centres are named as the second strongest driver of natural gas demand growth through 2035, after LNG exports.
The reason is simple: AI workloads want continuous, predictable power, a demand profile intermittent renewables cannot meet on their own. Gas is the readiest option able to serve that profile without storage investment.
The choice has a duration dimension as well. Gas plants built today take investment on the basis of running for decades; a short-term rise in demand can therefore turn into a long-term emissions commitment.
The limits
This is a projection, not a measurement. A forecast that doubled in nine months carries no guarantee of moving the same way over the next nine; efficiency gains or a slowdown in demand could pull it down just as fast.
For countries that import gas, the connection is indirect and runs through price. An increase of this scale in global gas demand feeds into their energy costs, and the arithmetic of local data centre investment rests on that price.