Electricity consumption by China's internet data service sector in 2026 had surpassed 60 billion kilowatt-hours as of Wednesday, up more than 40 percent year on year, according to the data from the China Electricity Council (CEC).
With the rapid growth of electricity consumption in data centers driven by artificial intelligence and other emerging industries, the average token invocation volume across the country has increased by thousands of times, and the demand for computing power has also risen accordingly.
As of the end of July 2026, China's intelligent computing capacity had reached 2.45 million PFLOPS, with the established intelligent computing capacity of its eight national computing power hubs and three computing power-electricity synergistic development zones accounting for over 85 percent of the national total.
"It is estimated that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), the national computing power consumption will increase by more than 100 billion kilowatt-hours annually on average. By 2030, it is expected to reach 800 billion kilowatt-hours, accounting for about 6 percent of the total electricity consumption of the whole society. Emerging sectors like new energy vehicles and artificial intelligence are constantly expanding, giving rise to new growth points for electricity consumption, continuously activating new quality productive forces, and injecting abundant impetus into China's long-term and steady economic growth and high-quality development," said Pan Yuelong, chairman of the supervisory board of the CEC.
Internet data service's power consumption tops 60 bln kWh
