Data Center AI Chips to Dominate Semiconductor Market
TapTechNews June 27th news, market research institute TechInsights today released the latest forecast, stating that data center AI chips and accelerators will continue to dominate the global semiconductor market. From 2023 to 2029, the shipment will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 33% and reach 33 million annually.
The institution pointed out that generative AI use cases are the biggest driving force for chips, and GPUs are the most demanded accelerators. But in terms of power, "some simple calculations" show that the power required by AI will occupy a considerable share in global power consumption.
Taking Nvidia's H100 as an example, its peak power consumption is 700 watts, which is roughly the same as that of a working microwave oven. And as the super-chip is updated and replaced, the peak power consumption may still increase. One Nvidia Blackwell super-chip contains two 1200-watt GPUs and a 300-watt CPU. There are 36 super-chips in NVL72, and the total rack power is 120 kilowatts.
If all data center accelerators sold during 2025 to 2029 are continuously used during their 5-year service life and the power consumption is conservatively 700 watts during this period, then the total power consumption of global data center accelerators is 2318 terawatt-hours (Note by TapTechNews: 1 terawatt-hour = 1 billion kilowatt-hours).
The institution also pointed out that considering the huge demand for GPU capacity and the need to use these expensive assets to provide returns, such high utilization is feasible.
According to the data of the US Energy Information Administration, from 2025 to 2029, global power consumption will reach 153,000 terawatt-hours. This means that AI chips will account for 1.5% of power consumption in the next five years, which is an important part of global energy consumption, and this energy use will also translate into carbon emissions.
If seen from the data of the Energy Research Institute, in 2023, the average carbon intensity of the power grid is 481 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. This means that from 2025 to 2029, AI chips will generate 1.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and these carbon emissions need about 50 billion mature trees to absorb annually.
