President Trump announced that his administration has extracted a pledge from the technology companies behind the data center construction surge that they need to provide their own power for these facilities.
During last night’s State of the Union address, the president acknowledged the growing level of public agitation over the significant energy needs of the new data centers.
“Many Americans are also concerned that energy demand from AI data centers could unfairly drive up their electric utility bills,” Trump said. “Tonight, I’m pleased to announce that I have negotiated the new ratepayer protection pledge.”
Trump continued, “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 and in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community, and very substantially then.”
The president called his approach “a unique strategy never used in this country before” and admitted the new data centers cannot be accommodated by the existing grid structure.
“We have an old grid. It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed,” he stated. “So, I’m telling them they can build their own plant, they’re going to produce their own electricity. It will ensure the company’s ability to get electricity, while at the same time lowering prices of electricity for you and could be very substantial. For all of these cities and towns, you’re going to see some good things happen over the next number of years.”
The administration offered no further details on which companies agreed to this request, nor was there an explanation on how or if this would be monitored or regulated.
Photo by Gage Skidmore / Flickr Creative Commons
