Assessing the Carbon Emissions and Energy Consumption of U.S. Hyperscale Data Centers

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2606.05420v1
• Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:38:10 GMT
• Title: Assessing the Carbon Emissions and Energy Consumption of U.S. Hyperscale Data Centers
• Abstract summary: We compiled information on 403 US hyperscale data centers operating between May 2024 and April 2025.<n>We estimated their electricity consumption, electricity sources, and attributable CO2 emissions.<n>Our approach provides an attributional tool for assessing the environmental footprint of hyperscale data centers.
• Score: 2.4666920127921554
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: The rapid proliferation of hyperscale data centers (HDCs) in the US, mainly driven by the adoption of artificial intelligence, has raised concerns about this industry's environmental footprint. We compiled facility-level information on 403 US hyperscale data centers operating between May 2024 and April 2025 and estimated their electricity consumption, electricity sources, and attributable CO2 emissions. Across different facility-load scenarios, these HDCs consumed approximately 68-99 TWh of electricity and were associated with about 37-54 million metric tons of CO2. Under the central scenario, HDC electricity demand corresponded to approximately 1.8% of total US electricity consumption, with roughly 54% of attributed generation supplied by fossil-fuel sources. The HDC electricity-weighted average carbon intensity was approximately 545 gCO2/kWh, about 48% above the contemporaneous US national grid-average carbon intensity of 370 gCO2/kWh. Our approach provides an attributional tool for assessing the environmental footprint of hyperscale data centers using the most recent EPA eGRID plant-level data.

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