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How US LNG exports and AI power demand will intersect
Gastech governing board member Rakhi Oli reviews LNG exports, data centre growth and shifting energy dependencies
Global energy systems are undergoing a fundamental shift, says Gastech governing board member and Flowserve senior global leader, strategy and business development, low carbon business segment, Rakhi Oli.
Ms Oli writes that global energy systems are being reshaped by “the geopolitical imperative for energy security and the exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI)”.
She said the US is at the centre of that shift, linking its role as the world’s largest LNG exporter with the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure and electricity demand.
US LNG exports reached 15.0Bn cubic feet per day in 2025 and could rise above 18.1Bn cubic feet per day by 2027.
The export growth, notes Ms Oli, is driven by domestic gas reserves, flexible export structures and investment along the Gulf Coast.
The US has also tied LNG exports to wider geopolitical aims, while moving to accelerate approvals for further liquefaction capacity.
Europe is presented as one of the clearest examples of changing dependency, with the region’s move away from Russian pipeline gas after 2022 increasing its reliance on US LNG.
Europe received 69% of US LNG exports in 2022, up from 34% in 2021, and the EU sourced about 57% of its LNG imports from the US in 2025.
If existing contracts are fully executed and demand restraint weakens, this share could rise to as much as 80% by 2030, notes Ms Oli.
Ms Oli also points to Asia as a central market for long-term LNG growth, and buyers in Japan, South Korea and India are seeking supply diversity beyond the Middle East and value the destination flexibility offered by US LNG contracts.
Such arrangements provide “a level of agility that traditional, rigid long-term contracts cannot match”, but disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has tightened short-term balances and increased spot price pressure.
A key input into US domestic LNG demand is AI-driven power demand, where electricity use from data centres worldwide is projected to more than double by 2030; natural gas already supplies more than 40% of US data centre power needs.
Citing a Goldman Sachs estimate, Ms Oli noted that rising data centre demand could add 3.3Bn cubic feet per day to US gas demand by the end of the decade.
Ms Oli said this has given rise to what “industry analysts are calling a ‘petro-tech buildout’” where the US leads the world in gas-fired power capacity under development, with nearly 252 GW planned, and said more than one-third of this is intended to serve data centres directly. Texas alone accounts for nearly a third of that planned capacity.
In that respect, the US now sits between “two era-defining trends”, the reordering of global energy flows and the expansion of AI infrastructure. The country’s gas resource base may allow it to support both export growth and domestic power demand, but Ms Oli warns that regional bottlenecks, infrastructure constraints and fast-rising consumption could tighten balances and increase price volatility.
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