The explosive growth of artificial intelligence and the data centres that power it is consuming electricity at a rate that will compete directly with EVs for grid capacity — leaving less room for EV charging and potentially driving up costs for everyone.
AI data centres are genuinely growing fast and are a real grid planning consideration. Canada, with its abundant hydroelectric power and cool climate, has become an attractive destination for data centre investment, and provinces like British Columbia have begun managing this demand actively — BC's Bill 31 introduced rules to control the allocation of power to data centres.
However, the competition framing mischaracterizes the nature of both demands. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that globally, the growth in electricity demand from data centres between now and 2030 is roughly 8% of total projected demand growth — less than the share attributable to EVs (approximately 15%). And while both are growing, they are not in direct competition for the same electrons: data centres typically require consistent, firm power in specific locations, while EV charging is geographically distributed and highly schedulable. This makes the two loads complementary rather than conflicting in grid planning terms.
Canada's grid — already over 80% non-emitting — has significant capacity to grow through new renewable generation, and the need to power both AI and EVs is one of the drivers of that investment.