AI Data Center Needs Additional 20 GW of Electricity, Clean Energy is Key to Investment

DENPASAR, GARISBUMI.com – The growth of data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) opens up investment opportunities for Indonesia. However, that opportunity brings a large need for electricity. Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said the additional power needed would reach 20 gigawatts (GW).

This large need makes the readiness of energy supplies, especially clean energy, an important factor in attracting data center investment. The government is also encouraging Batam, Karimun and Bintan to become digital industry development areas.

"I just finished talking with the Managing Director of PLN, it requires an additional 20 GW. This 20 GW is the same as 20,000 MW. That's the same as 20 percent of the total existing electricity. This is not a small amount, it is quite large," said Bahlil in his speech at Bali Tech Week 2026 in Denpasar, Monday (19/10/2026), as quoted from a statement from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

According to Bahlil, digitalization is an industrialization instrument that requires adequate energy support. Without a ready electricity supply, technological developments have the potential to present new problems.

Every message, video and question to an AI application requires processing on a data center server. As this technology develops, the power requirements to operate data centers also increase.

In a statement from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, data centers in the cloud computing era are said to require around 10-30 megawatts (MW) of power. Meanwhile, AI-based data center power requirements can reach 100 MW to 1 GW.

Apart from electricity, investment realization depends on the availability of water, fiber optic networks and location readiness.