This dataset contains the present-day, global, survey-based, and spatially explicit air-conditioning adoption rate dataset developed in Li et al. (2024), “Enhancing Urban Climate-Energy Modeling in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) through Explicit Representation of Urban Air-conditioning Adoption”, published in Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. It also contains the simulation results analyzed in the article. Details about this dataset (data sources, data collection and processing methods, simulation setup, etc.) are described in the article. The air-conditioning adoption rate dataset is publicly available in tabular, vector, and gridded formats. It is compatible with CESM, and can also be leveraged in other climate and energy modeling applications and socioeconomic or integrated assessment analyses. This dataset may be useful for multiple scientific communities regarding urban climate and energy, impacts, vulnerability, risks, and adaptation applications. For more detailed description, please refer to the README file (global_AC_adoption_rate_README.txt) included in the dataset.