American data centers are on track to consume more natural gas than nearly every country in the world within the next decade as the artificial intelligence boom drives electricity demand higher, according to a new BloombergNEF outlook.

Natural gas consumption used to generate electricity for U.S. data centers is projected to increase by 15 billion cubic feet per day through 2035, according to BloombergNEF. The projection accounts for the possibility that many data center projects currently planned across the country will never be built.

The additional demand alone would exceed the amount of natural gas currently consumed by every country except China, Russia, Iran and the United States, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. BloombergNEF’s latest estimate is also more than twice its December forecast, which projected data centers would require an additional 6.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

Natural gas is expected to provide 69% of the electricity needed by new grid-connected facilities under BloombergNEF’s forecast. Power-sector gas consumption is projected to climb from roughly 36 billion cubic feet per day in 2025 to 54 billion by 2035, according to the report.

On-site gas plants announced by companies including Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon are expected to use between 2.9 billion and 3.4 billion cubic feet per day by 2035. Grid-connected data centers, however, account for the bulk of the growth at an additional 15 billion cubic feet per day.

The forecast positions data centers as the second-strongest driver of natural gas demand growth after LNG exports. BloombergNEF expects gas to supply the majority of power for new facilities due to the abundance and low cost of U.S. natural gas production along with the fuel’s flexibility to meet the round-the-clock needs of data centers.

The revised outlook reflects upward adjustments to data center capacity forecasts amid rapid AI expansion. Earlier BNEF projections for U.S. data center power capacity reached 194 gigawatts by 2035 in the base case.