Data centers in Mexico: electricity demand will multiply x6 by 2031

If you’re evaluating a new data center and the first question that comes up is whether there’s enough power generation. That’s the wrong question, and finding out late costs months of design and an investment you can no longer move.

Banamex calculates that data center power in Mexico will go from 279 MW installed to about 1,730 MW in 2031, while another 205 MW are already under construction. Almost six times more.

Adding cooling and other services, annual consumption would reach 18.2 TWh: 6% of Mexico’s final electricity consumption in 2025.

That 6% national sounds reassuring. It isn’t. Electricity demand is not distributed evenly across states: it accumulates where there’s fiber, water, available landing, and proximity to the capital. In Mexico that place is just one.

The 72% concentrated in one state

Querétaro brings together nearly three-quarters of national installed capacity, and Banamex projects the state will go from about 200 MW currently to more than 1,300 MW in 2031.

The approximately 1,100 MW additional equal 72% of the maximum electricity demand recorded by all of Querétaro during 2025. And that comparison is what matters: you’re not measuring your campus against the national electric system, but against the historical peak of a single entity.

The same report attributes to the National Energy Control Center (Cenace) recognition of delays to connect installations without costly reinforcements, financed by the promoters themselves. The problem, says Banamex, is not just producing electricity, but transporting it through lines and substations to where investment concentrates.

The greatest risk, says the institution, is that “public decisions and project execution capacity do not advance at the required pace.”

Why asking for more generation is the wrong question

The national argument mixes two infrastructure layers that obey different times, costs, and responsibilities. Treating them as one leads to negotiating with someone who can’t solve your problem.

In the Bajío and northern strip, more than 60% of the transmission network operates near maximum capacity, and the reserve margin has fallen below the regulatory threshold.

At the national level, the Operating Reserve Margin stayed above what was needed during 2025. That difference is exactly the problem: national sufficiency says nothing about the point where you will connect.

Pedro Escobedo: 149 MW against the 250 MW minimum

Artificial intelligence changed the requirement scale. A data center dedicated to AI cannot operate with less than 250 MW of dedicated capacity, according to Adriana Rivera Cerecedo, executive director of the Mexican Association of Data Centers (MEXDC).

The data center with the most energy in the country is in Pedro Escobedo, Querétaro, and operates with 149 MW. It’s larger than any other in the Republic, and still falls below that threshold.

The consequence is direct: today no Mexican campus can by itself store and train AI models at scale. It’s not a technological limitation of the country, it’s a limit of connected power at a single point of the system.

And interconnection permits before the CFE and Cenace, according to the association, take years in certain regions.

That’s why the aggregate figure of 279 MW installed says little. What matters is the power block you can secure at a specific point, with a date and with backup.

The CFE-MEXDC table of September 10 and what it doesn’t protect

On September 10, 2026, CFE and MEXDC closed a coordination framework to anticipate sector demand. The association delivers consolidated data on projects, expansions, and consumption profiles, and CFE designs generation, transmission, distribution, and storage solutions according to each project’s location.

The agreement includes weekly technical groups, tracking of Cenace regulatory processes, and identification of Distribution personnel responsible for each zone where a data center already operates.

It’s a planning framework, not an interconnection commitment. It does not set energization dates, does not assign who finances transmission reinforcements, and reviews around 1,705 MW of requirements, below the 1,730 MW the sector projects for 2031.

In addition, it coordinates at a national level a demand that, according to the agreement itself, concentrates in one state. A shared calendar does not replace a built substation.

Three questions that change your evaluation

1. At which transformation bank does your load arrive, with what nominal capacity and with what estimated energization date?
2. Who pays for the line and reinforcement substation, in what amount and under what contractual scheme?
3. Does your program depend on a single interconnection point, or do you have a second backup point with reserved capacity?

These three answers appear in site documentation. When they’re not there, or when the answer is “the developer resolves it later”, the risk ends up being yours.

Sources

1. El Periódico de la Energía: data centers in Mexico would multiply their electricity demand by six.
2. the Watt: electricity gap between the 1,730 MW announced and the 279 MW in operation.
3. the Watt: CFE and MEXDC agree on joint planning for 1.73 GW.
4. Forbes Mexico: there is not enough energy in Mexico for AI data centers.
5. El Financiero: the electric system has 12% reserves, reports CFE.