Hitachi Energy said that demand for data centers is expected to increase significantly and could become a larger opportunity than high-voltage direct current (HVDC) [1].
This shift signals a pivot in the energy infrastructure landscape as artificial intelligence drives a surge in power intensity. The transition highlights a critical need for cost-effective and reliable power to sustain the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure [1, 2].
The company shared these insights during the ICICI Securities Investor Conference 2026 in India. The forecasts extend through 2030 and into the next decade, suggesting that the scale of power requirements for data centers will outpace traditional energy transmission projects [1].
Global trends support this outlook. Some analyses indicate that global data center power demand will quadruple over the next decade [3]. This explosion in need is closely tied to the computational requirements of AI-driven workloads, which demand more electricity per unit of processing than previous generations of technology [3].
Regional growth is particularly aggressive in Asia. Data center power demand in China is currently growing at an annual rate of 19% [2]. Projections suggest that China's data center power consumption will reach 289 TWh by 2030 [2].
This volume would represent 2.3% of China's total national power demand by the end of the decade [2]. The scale of this growth necessitates a massive overhaul of how power is delivered to these facilities to avoid grid instability.
Hitachi Energy's assessment suggests that the market for data center power solutions is no longer a niche segment but a primary driver of industrial energy demand [1].
“Demand for data centers is expected to increase significantly and could become a larger opportunity than HVDC.”
The projected shift in priority from HVDC to data center infrastructure reflects a fundamental change in global energy consumption. As AI moves from theoretical application to industrial scale, the 'bottleneck' for tech growth is shifting from chip production to power availability. This puts immense pressure on national grids to modernize and creates a massive commercial opportunity for energy technology firms capable of managing extreme power density.
