Overview
- Cambridge’s preliminary update, presented at the Energy Investors Forum in Dallas on July 26, 2026, reports annualized electricity demand for Bitcoin mining rose about 38% to roughly 190 terawatt‑hours.
- The survey shows low‑carbon sources at 59.4% of the reported mix with hydropower now larger than natural gas, a change Cambridge partly links to stronger responses from hydro‑rich markets such as Ethiopia.
- Estimated greenhouse‑gas emissions still increased to about 48 million tonnes of CO2e because total power use grew faster than the shift toward cleaner sources.
- Cambridge cautions the figures are provisional and based mainly on survey responses covering slightly more than half of global hashrate, so geographic sampling and its annualized method could change final numbers in the full 2026 report.
- About 10% of surveyed miners have already moved some capacity to AI and high‑performance computing and over 40% are exploring it, a shift that could reshape miners’ revenue and power contracts if deployments scale.