Abstract
The unprecedented expansion of Artificial Intelligence is adding increasing electricity demand to Europe's power system. While incumbent plans pursue a net-zero future by 2050, they fail to consider the implications of large-scale AI-based data centres. In this study, a spatially explicit optimisation model is developed to assess how hyperscale data centres may reshape energy infrastructure investment, and emissions trajectories, across different AI demand growth scenarios. The results indicate that, after 2030, AI capacity deployment increasingly shifts toward regions with the ability to expand nuclear and gas-based generation, as firm and flexible power sources are essential for supporting the deployment of high-capacity AI data centres. By 2050, AI-driven electricity demand under high growth scenarios may reach up to 450 TWh, corresponding to 7% of total Europe's demand, with installed AI capacity reaching approximately 85 GW. This additional load leads to an increase of nearly 25 MtCO2 in cumulative emissions between 2030 and 2050. Our analysis indicates that, depending on the AI growth scenario, meeting AI-related electricity demand by 2050 requires between 37 and 323 GW of additional capacity across Europe, ranging from the pessimistic to the lift-off scenario, including investments in nuclear (2-12 GW), gas (2-7 GW), wind (13-100 GW), solar (20-134 GW), and battery storage (0-70 GW).