Exposing a dirty secret: What uses more power, Bitcoin, streaming, AI, or social media?

2026-01-24 01:20:01

Source: CryptoNewsNet Original Title: Exposing a dirty secret: What uses more power, Bitcoin, streaming, AI, or social media? Original Link: Bitcoin mining consumed around 171 TWh in 2025, representing 16% of total data center energy use.

All traditional data centers worldwide consumed between 448 and 1,050 TWh in 2025, with estimates varying across analysts’ data. Gartner has it at 448 TWh, while Socomec and the IEA cite a range between 600 and 1050 TWh.

Gartner projections suggest this will reach 980 TWh by 2030, but IEA data also proposes we’ll break the 1,000 TWh landmark this year (if we haven’t already).

AI-focused facilities are officially estimated to have consumed between 82 and 536 TWh in 2025, accounting for 11-40% of all data center energy usage. The wide range is driven by the speed of AI deployment and the difficulty of tracking exact usage data.

Therefore, traditional data centers, including cloud computing, enterprise applications, streaming, and social media, certainly accounted for north of 388 TWh in 2025.

2025 metric	Range (TWh)	Average used (TWh)	Notes
All data centers (ex BTC)	448–1,050	800	Conservative working average for analysis
AI-focused data centers (derived from total)	88–536	350	Midpoint
Traditional / non-AI data centers (derived)	388–712	450	Total minus AI (800 − 350)
Bitcoin mining (electricity use)	138–204	171	Range spans Cambridge estimate (~138) to Digiconomist annualized estimate (~204)

BTC-0.67%

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