Hyperscale Data Centres — Growth, Power, and Climate Impact

The AI boom is fuelling the surge in data centre construction, particularly hyperscale data centres. Data centres are the physical infrastructure of the internet and artificial intelligence.

They house servers, storage systems, networking equipment, and associated components such as cooling and backup power systems to keep digital services running smoothly.

While data servers vary in size – from a small server room in an office to massive buildings the size of hundreds of football fields known as “hyperscale” data centres, these gigantic data centres are the subject of much attention due to their size, the speed at which they are being built across the US, and their environmental impact on local communities.

Hyperscale’s are massive cloud computing companies that operate enormous data centres to deliver scalable infrastructure, storage, and services worldwide.

The big five hyperscalers, or those that operate AI hyperscale data centres, are Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Alibaba, which dominate the global cloud infrastructure and support AI training at unprecedented scale, using thousands of servers per facility.

Hyperscale data centres consume significantly more energy than traditional facilities due to the demands of AI workloads, cloud computing, and continuous operation.

When comparing power consumption, average data centres typically require between 5 and 10 megawatts (MW) of electricity. In contrast, large hyperscale data centres, which are rapidly increasing in number across the US, have power demands of 100 MW or more.

This level of consumption is comparable to that of approximately 350,000 to 400,000 electric cars. A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory predicts that by 2028, data centres could account for up to 12% of all electricity consumption in the United States.

In addition to the significant power demands of AI, it has another concerning impact on the environment and local communities, according to a recent study. This study, published in March 2026, reveals that hyperscale data centres emit waste heat, creating an effect known as the “data heat island effect.”

These warming effects can extend up to 10 kilometres (6 miles) away, potentially impacting over 340 million people living within that area.

The study titled “The Data Heat Island Effect: Quantifying the Impact of AI Data Centres in a Warming World” reviewed over 6,000 data centres worldwide. It measured land surface temperatures from 2004 to 2024 using satellite data from NASA’s MODIS LST dataset, focusing on data centre locations, particularly those situated outside dense urban areas.

These locations were chosen because they are less influenced by other heat sources, such as buildings, factories, and homes. The researchers also filtered out seasonal effects, climate change impacts, and other influencing factors.

Their findings reveal that these data centres raised ground temperatures by an average of 2°C (3.6°F). Additionally, these land surface temperature increases are consistent across many parts of the world, though they differ by climate. The study shows the land surface temperature increases in three locations:

In the Bajío area of Mexico, which has many data centres and has seen significant development in the last two decades, land surface temperatures have increased by about 2°C over 20 years, in contrast to nearly all areas.

In Aragon, Spain, which is emerging as a major European data centre hub, temperatures have risen by an anomalous 2°C. The increase is higher than in nearby Spanish areas or the rest of Europe.

Lastly, the Northeast regions in Brazil, particularly around Teresina in Piaui, which hosts a high concentration of data centres, have shown a peculiar temperature rise in the range of 2.8°C and may even reach 3.5°C in the next five years, a trend not seen in other parts of northern or equatorial Brazil.

The study’s findings show that rising temperatures in surrounding areas, caused by the waste heat emitted by data centres worldwide, are creating a mini-climate, or what they call a “data heat island,” a concept similar to the urban heat island (UHI) effect. This finding is particularly concerning and relevant, as data centres are being rapidly built around the world.

The research notes:

“The consistency, scale and extent of these effects lead us to think that the creation of local climate zones induced by data centres – that we call the data heat island effect – is real and significant, especially in the context of global warming and climate transformation. Consequently, the data heat island effect could affect the welfare, healthcare, energy, and demographic systems. Since the trends of data centre energy consumption are expected to show a steep growth in the foreseeable future, the data heat island effect could solidly become an additional factor for environmental and industrial sustainability in the changing climate, hence having a robust impact on communities at local, regional, and international levels, thus demanding to be studied in complex multi-hazard systems. To this aim, in this paper, we provide an overview of potential solutions to alleviate the data heat island effect, which could be further expanded into mitigation policies for future climate and socioeconomic scenarios.”