U.S. Data Center Emissions Through 2040
With demand outpacing clean energy, data center emissions could increase up to 110% in 4 years.
Over the next four years, emissions from U.S. data centers are set to rise 50% to 110%. Load is arriving faster than the clean generation needed to serve it, forcing greater utilization of existing fossil assets.
Solutions are limited on the supply side. New gas turbine orders face three-year backlogs, clean firm technologies remain pre-commercial, and renewables have lost key federal incentives amid siting and permitting battles. Without intervention, a near-term surge in emissions is effectively locked in.
These dynamics reflect constraints in the broader power system, not a lack of ambition from data center developers. Many of the largest firms including Google and Microsoft are already driving clean energy demand, underwriting early clean firm projects, and exploring 24/7 procurement. Our modeling uses prevailing regional emissions factors and does not fully reflect the system-wide impact that premium clean energy procurement or early commercialization commitments can have.
Even so, data center developers remain the most immediate lever for near-term action, prompting the following questions that must be answered before the next wave of projects connects to the grid:
- How much time can operational flexibility buy us?
- Could limited use of backup generators reduce reliance on coal generation and delay new gas buildouts?
- What requirements should utilities place on new data center connections to ensure grid stability without escalating emissions?
Beyond 2030, the story is less certain. By 2040, data center emissions could return to today’s levels or climb to more than 2.5x higher. That means U.S. data centers could soon produce as much emissions as entire nations like Iraq or Spain.
Of the 100 scenarios that we ran for this Ensemble analysis, the 20 that achieve the lowest emissions share one common feature: the phaseout of coal. In these scenarios, coal phaseout is achieved partly through significant new gas capacity, around 89 GW. To achieve low-emissions and prevent the buildout of new gas, a scenario would have to build 194 GW of clean firm and 935 GW of renewables by 2040.
Our team is continuing to analyze how flexible operation, backup generators, smart siting, and innovative tariff designs can reduce the near-term impacts of data center growth.
Figure: Data center emissions across 100 Ensemble scenarios (2025-2040)
Note: Country-level fossil CO₂ emissions are from Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Pagani, F., Banja, M., Muntean, M. et al., GHG emissions of all world countries - 2025 Report, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2025, doi:10.2760/9816914, JRC143227.
