White House wants AI companies to cover rate hikes
EL.KZ Информационно-познавательный портал
The proliferation of AI data centers plugging into the national electrical grid has helped increase consumer electricity prices, driving up the average national electricity price by more than 6% in the last year, El.kz reports citing TechCrunch.
That’s not a good look for the incumbents ahead of this fall’s elections, and President Donald Trump addressed the challenge in his State of the Union speech last night.
“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” Trump said. “They can build their own power plants as part of their factory, so that no one’s prices will go up.”
The hyperscalers in question don’t need to be told. They have already made public commitments in recent weeks to cover electricity costs by building their own power sources, paying higher rates, or both, part of a broader effort to solve PR problems around data center expansion and win over skeptical communities.
White House spokesperson Taylor Rodgers said that next week, companies will send representatives to formally sign the pledge at the White House. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI are reportedly among those set to attend. However, none of the companies have confirmed their attendance.
Even if tech companies commit to taking on electricity costs, on-site power plants may not be a panacea — they can still have adverse impacts on the surrounding environment, and will stress supply chains for natural gas, turbines, photovoltaics, and batteries, depending on how companies aim to power their compute.
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