According to the International Energy Agency, data centres consumed about 415 terawatt-hours in 2024, close to 1.5% of global electricity. Driven by the boom in artificial intelligence, that figure could more than double by 2030 to around 945 TWh: slightly more than Japan's entire electricity consumption today. In the United States, data centres could account for nearly half of the growth in electricity demand over that period.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.