The Zhitong Finance App learned that the electricity research report released by Allianz Investment in September indicates that AI data centers, the spread of electric vehicles, climate warming, and manufacturing expansion are jointly driving up electricity demand, and a new era of electricity consumption is beginning. For the first time in 30 years, global electricity demand is growing faster than economic output. It is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 3.6% over the next five years, 50% faster than in the past ten years.
Allianz believes that this round of electricity demand growth is different from the fluctuations in electricity consumption driven by past economic cycles. There are four long-term drivers behind it: data centers, electrification of transportation, air conditioning and heat pumps, and industrial production. Among them, data centers are the fastest growing source of new demand, and are expected to contribute about 10% of the world's new electricity demand by 2030. The scale of servers required for AI training and inference continues to expand, making the expansion of computing power increasingly constrained by power supply capacity.
For AI, semiconductors, batteries, and advanced manufacturing, the factors that will determine the global industrial layout in the future may not only include labor costs, tax rates, and supply chains, but stable and cheap electricity will also become a core competitive condition. Allianz estimates that in order to meet electricity growth and climate goals, the world may need to invest about $4.8 trillion a year in electricity generation, transmission, and energy storage over the next ten years.
Jibang Consulting estimates that the global data center power demand capacity will reach 161 GW in 2026, an increase of about 31% over the previous year. The main source of growth is AI servers, which are estimated to account for 33.4% of the total demand capacity. It is estimated that in 2030, the power demand capacity of global data centers will reach 490.7 GW. Under the premise that other electricity requirements are met, the power grid capacity that can be used by data centers is 222.6 GW, and the gap between supply and demand will reach 268 GW.
With the explosive growth of the global AI computing power industry and the intensive implementation of very large data centers, the global high-end backup power supply market has ushered in a structural dividend cycle. According to estimates in McKinsey's latest industry report, global demand for AI computing power will continue to expand rapidly, and global demand for AI-related computing power electricity will grow several times from 2025 to 2030, directly driving the demand for emergency diesel power generation equipment in high-end data centers to continue to explode. With its hard-core advantages such as high reliability, fast response speed, strong load capacity, and high independent stability, diesel generators have become the “last line of power defense” for the world's high-end data centers.
CITIC Securities said that massive AIToken demand has opened up room for long-term growth in computing power. Chinese and American companies are simultaneously increasing capital expenditure, and domestic computing power investment still has great potential to increase. At the same time, China's electricity supply and green power cost advantages are outstanding. Direct connection to green power and integrated source network load storage are advancing at an accelerated pace, and electricity computation and electricity collaboration is building unique industrial advantages. On the industrial chain side, computing power construction has greatly boosted demand for AI metals such as copper and tin. Under the asset attribute of superimposed computing power, IDCreits continues to broaden funding sources and support industry expansion. The computing power and power-related industry chains have medium- to long-term allocation value.
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Dongfang Electric (01072): Since 2009, Dongfang Electric has taken the lead in developing a heavy F-class 50MW gas turbine (G50) with completely independent intellectual property rights in China, and has achieved 100% independent manufacturing of high-temperature components. At the end of 2022, the first G50 was successfully ignited at China's Huadian Guangdong Qingyuan Overseas Chinese Industrial Park project site, and was officially put into commercial operation in March 2023; overseas orders achieved a “zero” breakthrough in 2025.
Weichai Power (02338): Weichai launched the world's first 5 MW high-speed diesel generator set, the 20M61. With its hard-core strength of “the world's highest power upgrade”, Weichai broke the long-term monopoly of overseas brands in the field of ultra-high power high-end power generation and successfully opened the door to the global high-end computing power supply market. The agency anticipates that the share of profits related to AIDC's power generation business is expected to increase from 20% to more than 40% in 2026-2028, and contribute more than 70% to the increase in performance.
Harbin Electric (01133): Citi indicated that its self-developed 16 MW gas turbine is expected to be tested in the second half of 2026 before it can be commercialized. Bank of China International said that considering the rapid expansion trend of AI data centers in Southeast Asia and other places, the company's technology accumulation in the field of gas turbines is expected to become a new growth point in the future.
Zhonglian Development Holdings (00264): Zhonglian Development Holdings previously issued announcements on July 26 and August 3. Its subsidiary signed two pre-manufactured AIDC module procurement agreements with Brightray Veridian, an overseas independent third-party customer. The two orders were worth 24.98 million US dollars and 68 million US dollars respectively, with a cumulative total of 93 million US dollars (about HK$731 million). The project delivery site was located at the AIDC project site in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.