Global data centre power demand is set to surge 500 per cent by 2040, with about three-quarters of that energy still supplied by hydrocarbons, the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week conference heard on Tuesday.
President Sheikh Mohamed attended the opening ceremony in the capital, along with the heads of states from countries including Serbia, Albania, Nigeria, South Africa and the Philippines. Chiefs of companies making significant investments in renewable energy, including BlackRock, Total Energies, Engie, Iberdrola, were also present.
Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and managing director and group chief executive of Adnoc, said “energy demand is accelerating across every dimension”.
“Air travel will double. Cities will expand by 1.5 billion people,” Dr Al Jaber, who is also chairman of Masdar, told the sustainability conference.
He said the surging demand for power necessitated a reality check, with demand for fossil fuels continuing to complement this growth for the foreseeable future.
“Over 70 per cent of this energy will still come from hydrocarbons,” he said.
“And while some view this as a constraint, I view it as a catalyst. Because sustainable progress is not about slowing down growth; it is about designing a better engine.”
Electricity demand in the Middle East and worldwide is rising sharply as governments add more renewable and conventional power capacity to support the growth of hyper-scale data centres.
The International Energy Agency said in April that electricity demand from data centres worldwide is expected to more than double by 2030 to about 945 terawatt-hours. This would be equal to slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today, the agency said.
Dr Al Jaber also said the UAE is open to collaboration in AI with international companies, investors and policymakers. Since 2024, the UAE’s investments in AI, both at home and abroad, have exceeded $148 billion, Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, previously said.
The UAE has attracted investment from OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco and SoftBank, which are teaming up with local company G42 on the Stargate UAE cluster at the 5-gigawatt UAE-US AI campus in Abu Dhabi. Energy expansion is also at the core of other international deals the UAE has signed. US technology company Microsoft said in November that it was building a 200-megawatt data centre as part of its $1.5 billion investment in G42 announced in 2024.
Dr Al Jaber said the UAE has significantly scaled up “energy and high-tech infrastructure” to support its AI ambitions.
“You will find them in abundance,” he said. “If return on investment is critical, here is where ease of doing business is backed by good governance and rule of law. If you want to engineer the future, this is where that work is happening.”
In November, Dr Al Jaber said the world needed $4 trillion in investments annually to support the build-up of new grids and data centres. He also singled out natural gas as a good fuel source to support power requirements of the energy intensive sector.
The UAE is expected to add more than 22 gigawatts of clean energy capacity by 2031 to meet increasing demand from data centres. Clean energy will account for 35 per cent of the baseload by then, Suhail Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastrure, said last month.
By the end of 2024, the UAE’s installed renewable energy capacity had climbed to 6.8 gigawatts, according to the Ministry of Energy. The country aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, with clean sources, including nuclear, accounting for half of its energy mix by then. The Emirates has also raised its 2030 renewable capacity target to 19.8 gigawatts, up from a previous goal of 14.2 gigawatts.
