White House pushes AI firms to cover data center energy costs

The White House is pressuring major tech companies to cover the electricity costs of their data centers. The policy push follows a more than 6% increase in the average national electricity price over the last year, a rise driven in part by artificial intelligence data centers plugging into the national electrical grid. During his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump addressed the challenge directly, stating, “We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs. They can build their own power plants as part of their factory, so that no one’s prices will go up.”

Hyperscalers—which are large-scale cloud computing providers—have already made public commitments to cover these electricity costs by building their own power sources, paying higher rates, or both. On January 11, Microsoft announced its policy to ensure that the electricity cost of serving its data centers is not passed on to residential customers. Shortly after, on January 26, OpenAI committed to paying its own way on energy to prevent its operations from increasing consumer energy prices. Anthropic made a similar pledge on February 11, promising to cover electricity price increases that consumers face from its data centers. Yesterday, Google announced a battery project in Minnesota to support its data center operations.

The exact terms of the proposed White House agreement remain unclear, as the administration has not released the text of the pledge. However, White House spokesperson Taylor Rodgers reportedly said that tech companies will send representatives to formally sign the pledge next week. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI are reportedly among the companies set to attend, though none of these entities have confirmed their attendance.

The reliance on voluntary commitments has drawn criticism from lawmakers. Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly argued on social media that a handshake agreement with large technology firms over data center costs is insufficient, stating that citizens require a guarantee against soaring energy prices and deserve a say in their communities. Even if tech companies fund their own power, on-site power plants may have adverse impacts on the surrounding environment. These projects could also stress supply chains for natural gas, turbines, photovoltaics, and batteries, depending on how the companies choose to power their computing infrastructure.

Why it matters

The White House is pressuring major tech companies to cover the electricity costs associated with their data centers to prevent residential price hikes, following a rise in national electricity prices linked to AI infrastructure.