US AI data centers projected to become the fifth-largest natural gas consumer in the world by 2035 — consumption to grow by 15 billion cubic feet per day as demand for compute increases
- ID
- 24703
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 15 Sep 2026, 9:57 PM
- Fetched
- 15 Sep 2026, 11:32 PM
- Provider
- Tom's Hardware
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/us-ai-data-centers-projected-to-become-the-fifth-largest-natural-gas-consumer-in-the-world-by-2035-consumption-to-grow-by-15-billion-cubic-feet-per-day-as-demand-for-compute-increases
- Source URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/feeds/all
Summary
- Score
- 4.0
- Created
- 15 Sep 2026, 11:36 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coderssaas_founders
What happened
A projection cited by Tom's Hardware estimates US AI data centers will become the world's fifth-largest natural gas consumer by 2035, with consumption growing by 15 billion cubic feet per day as compute demand scales. The article body contains no substantive analysis beyond the headline figure.
Why it matters
For builders shipping AI-dependent products, this signals that US-based compute costs are tied to energy infrastructure constraints that may eventually pressure cloud pricing or capacity allocation. Malaysian founders relying on US cloud regions for inference should consider diversifying to regions with cheaper energy or local SEA capacity before projected bottlenecks materialize.
Discussion angle
Whether SEA data center capacity (Singapore, Johor, Batam) becomes more cost-competitive relative to US regions if US energy costs for AI compute scale as projected — and what that means for where Malaysian builders should host inference workloads.