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President Donald Trump is expected to convene tech executives at the White House next week to sign a pledge pledging that companies will pay for the electricity costs of their energy-intensive data centers.
Representatives from companies including Amazon.com, Metaplatforms, Microsoft and Google’s parent company Alphabet will join the president at the March 4 event, White House officials said. Other companies on the invite list include Elon Musk’s xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI.
Although the pledge is not binding or legally enforceable, government officials believe a formal commitment could bring accountability and provide some assurance to consumers concerned that the rapid development of data centers essential to artificial intelligence could lead to environmental damage and higher costs.
“Under this bold initiative, these large companies will build, install or buy their own power supplies for new AI data centers, ensuring that Americans’ electricity bills do not increase as demand increases,” White House Press Secretary Taylor Rogers said Wednesday. “President Trump is committed to securing America’s AI advantage while simultaneously reducing costs for working families.”
The ratepayer protection pledge marks the latest step in President Trump’s efforts to address the critical political challenge of rising power prices ahead of the November midterm elections.
Data centers, which are critical to expanding computing power and driving the AI innovations championed by Mr. Trump, are facing growing public opposition, and Americans fear they will be burdened with the cost. Resistance is also amplified by concerns about the facility’s water and land use and its reliance on diesel generators for backup power.
President Trump pledged during his 2024 campaign to cut electricity prices in half, but they have actually risen due to a surge in demand from data centers, industrial operations, home heating and cooking, and increased electrification of transportation. The average retail price of electricity nationwide reached US$17.24 per kilowatt hour in December, an increase of 6% from the same month last year.
In a poll on data center development conducted by Blue Rose Research for the advocacy group Climate Power, about 64% of voters said utility costs were the issue they were most concerned about.
Opponents of Trump’s pledge have derided the initiative as toothless, arguing that non-binding promises from tech companies cannot be expected to keep retail electricity prices in check.
Jesse Lee, a senior adviser at Climate Power, said the administration should seek to add power to meet future surges in demand, rather than offering “empty promises.” Instead, the Trump administration is cutting subsidies for renewable energy and halting construction of offshore wind farms along the U.S. East Coast.
President Trump highlighted this effort in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, casting data center construction as an opportunity to reduce power costs and improve the nation’s power transmission system.
“We’re telling big tech companies that they have an obligation to meet their own electricity needs,” Trump said. “They can build their own power plants as part of the factory. That way, prices don’t go up for anyone. And in many cases, electricity bills for the community go down, very significantly down.”
Separately, the Trump administration pressed the nation’s largest power grid to hold an emergency auction to allow tech companies to bid for long-term power supplies.
—With assistance from Courtney Subramanian.
bloomberg.com
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