NTT DATA and ENGIE partner on AI data center sustainability, integrating renewable energy and efficiency to de-risk environmental permitting.
The race to scale AI has triggered one of the largest infrastructure build-outs in modern history. By McKinsey's estimates, global spending on data centres could reach US$7 trillion by 2030.
However, the technology powering AI comes with a massive energy footprint. According to research from the IEA, data centres accounted for approximately 1.5% of the world's electricity consumption in 2024. The research projects that demand will double to 945 TWh by 2030—a figure that would exceed the current total electricity consumption of Japan, which has a population exceeding 120 million people.
In response to these challenges, NTT DATA and ENGIE have unveiled a strategic partnership to support the decarbonisation, energy resilience and sustainability of NTT DATA's global data centre operations. The collaboration combines ENGIE's leadership in renewable energy and low-carbon solutions with NTT DATA's infrastructure and technology services. NTT DATA states that the partnership secures long-term access to competitive renewable energy and power solutions that support continued growth of its data centres and AI infrastructure, while addressing its net-zero ambitions.
David Costa, Chief Sustainability Officer at NTT DATA, explains: "AI is transforming every industry, and long-term success depends on ensuring that AI is sustainable. Sustainability is both a competitive differentiator and a value creator. This partnership with ENGIE reflects our belief that energy transition and AI transformation must advance together, enabling us to innovate and scale responsibly while delivering long-term value for our clients and society."
Through the collaboration, ENGIE will support NTT DATA in addressing one of the most critical challenges facing the digital economy: securing reliable, competitive and low-carbon energy at the massive scale needed to power data centres. Nicolas Lefèvre-Marton, Group Vice President Data Center Acceleration & Strategy Partnerships at ENGIE, states: "Our partnership with NTT DATA is an exciting synergy between our industries, with both parties working to address the energy requirements of the data and AI revolution with renewable and sustainable solutions."
The multinational arrangement supports NTT DATA's global data centre expansion strategy, with working agreements already signed in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. In the UK, NTT DATA has agreed to a Corporate Power Purchase Agreement to serve its data centres until September 2030 from a RE100-compatible 24 MW wind farm in South Wales.
NTT DATA overhauled its sustainability materiality framework in 2025, introducing 13 new priorities across environmental, economic and social dimensions. The Japanese tech services giant cited the need to respond to rapid shifts in its business landscape as the reason for this change. The revised framework organises the firm's ESG priorities under three pillars: Planet Positive, Prosperity Positive and People Positive.
More broadly, AI firms and data centre operators face increasing pressure from campaign groups to decarbonise, while surging power demands from AI remain a key hurdle for data centre operators. There have been increasing calls for regulations on data centres to limit environmental impacts. According to research from the London School of Economics, AI regulations largely focus on ethics and privacy, neglecting explicit environmental impacts. The LSE notes that regulatory oversight remains fragmented or inadequate in many locations, including the US, exemplified by cases where companies operate energy infrastructure to power data centres without an environmental permit.