Data centers devour natural gas as U.S. consumption is projected to surpass Germany and Japan combined by 2035
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Recent estimates published by Bloomberg NEF indicate that the pace of expansion in cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States will cause data centers to consume quantities of natural gas exceeding what Germany and Japan together consume by 2035. The report shows that daily demand from these facilities could jump to about 18 billion cubic feet per day, roughly double the estimates the firm made just nine months earlier, taking into account that part of the announced projects may not actually be completed. This trajectory makes data centers the second-largest driver of natural-gas demand growth over the next decade, after liquefied natural gas export projects.
The notable aspect of the engineering analysis of these facilities is the split between self-generation and reliance on public grids. Companies such as Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have recently announced plans to build natural-gas-fired power stations on their computing sites to bypass public transmission bottlenecks. These independent projects alone will consume between 2.9 and 3.4 billion cubic feet per day by 2035, a volume comparable to the total current consumption of all U.S. data centers.The bulk of demand will come from centers tied to traditional gridsIt is expected to raise energy-sector consumption by about 15 billion cubic feet per day, roughly five times the projected demand growth from all other grid-connected sectors combined.
This consumption surge threatens to upend the financial assumptions underpinning past technology-expansion plans. Data-center construction has relied on stable and relatively low natural-gas prices, yet analysts at Noriva argue that this bet may encounter a genuine price shock. The convergence of massive domestic demand with expanding LNG exports could push prices to record levels, and while the cash-rich budgets of tech giants can absorb those increases, ordinary customers’ electricity bills will be the most vulnerable and affected.
On the environmental front, the figures reveal a direct burden on emissions-reduction pathways. Burning each cubic foot of natural gas releases about 60 grams of CO₂-equivalent across extraction, processing and distribution, according to International Energy Agency data. The anticipated increase from data centers will emit an additional million metric tonnes of greenhouse gases per day, roughly 12 percent of current U.S. emissions.
What does this shift mean for organizations and tech teams in the Gulf, Egypt and the region?This reality imposes two core variables: the first concerns hosting costs and APIs, as higher energy prices for global operators will translate into adjusted inference pricing and cloud-training hours purchased by regional firms, prompting technology leaders in banks and startups to reassess computing contracts and explore hybrid or local architectures to avoid cloud-bill volatility. The second variable touches regional infrastructure plans; entities building massive computing centers in the Gulf will confront energy-supply challenges and the allocation of generation networks themselves, meaning competitiveness will no longer be measured solely by the number of chips but by the ability to secure gas turbines and independent generation sources without overburdening city grids.