Key points
- President Donald Trump is set to meet with leaders from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, XAI, Oracle, and OpenAI at the White House next week.
- These companies will sign a pledge to power their data centers with their own energy.
- The centers are facing criticism because many people blame higher utility bills on the large amount of electricity these facilities use.
Trump tells major tech companies to generate their own power for AI data centers and launches a new ratepayer protection pledge to help control rising electricity prices in the U.S.
During yesterday’s State of the Union address, President Trump discussed the rising power costs caused by large-scale AI expansion and offered a solution. He announced a new ratepayer protection pledge, saying companies will now have to build their own power plants for data centers and generate their own electricity for AI workloads.
In recent years, major tech companies have used large data centers to drive the AI boom, building huge sites that run thousands of GPUs. At the same time, these chips require significant energy and must be kept cool, which increases overall power consumption. Until now, these companies have plugged into the grid and bought electricity as usual, but this has put a strain on the system.
Now people living nearby are paying more for electricity because their area is drawing more power from the grid. We have an old grid; it could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed, said Trump. Last year, one report said energy prices had already risen by as much as 36% in some states, and another suggested the problem could get even worse.
In 2028, data centers are expected to use 12% of the country’s total power, up from 4% in 2018. This has a big impact on regular people, who must pay more for the same amount of household electricity and now live near constantly noisy facilities. The companies responsible for the increases are less affected by higher prices.
Tech companies want us to imagine a future in which their AI can tell us what to cook, wear, and do in our free time. The advice is often questionable. For example, would you really want to put glue on your pizza? Still, we are told that this is the next step in computing. Meanwhile, the huge amount of electricity needed to answer these questions is already pushing up consumer electricity prices nationwide, since the power grid isn’t ready for the sudden surge in demand.
This week reports that higher energy use from data centers has already led to a 6.5% rise in energy prices between May 2024 and May 2025. That’s just the average. Connecticut saw an 18.4% increase, which means prices jumped by 36.3%. These numbers are likely to keep going up as tech companies expand their AI infrastructure.
To keep pace, utilities are increasingly relying on ageing fossil-fuel plants to generate enough electricity to meet crushing demand. Newsweek says Dominion Energy, which serves much of Virginia, has asked regulators to require large-node customers to pay a fair share of grid upgrade costs without reform. Electricity prices in parts of Virginia are expected to climb as much as 25% by 2030.
Major tech companies will join President Trump at the White House next week to formally sign the ratepayer protection pledge that he announced during his historic State of the Union address, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rodgers said on Wednesday.
Under this bold initiative, these massive companies will build, bring in, or buy their own power supply for new AI data centers, ensuring that Americans’ electricity bills will not increase as demand grows, she added.
Data centers, which are key to expanding computing power and supporting the AI innovation Trump supports, have faced public backlash. Many people worry they will end up paying higher bills for these energy-hungry facilities.
President Donald Trump is committed to ensuring American AI dominance while simultaneously lowering costs for working families, Rogers said.
