Last month, President Trump sat alongside executives of the largest tech companies in the country as they pledged to pay a fair share of the energy costs of their data center buildout. “Data centers … they need some PR help,” Trump said at the gathering. “People think that if the data center goes in, their electricity is going to go up.”
It’s not an entirely unfounded assumption.
As the tech industry has funneled billions of dollars into the AI boom over the last several years, it has simultaneously been expanding its fleet of computing powerhouses, which require vast amounts of energy to run. These facilities have been cropping up all over the country, from rural communities in eastern Pennsylvania to the cities of northern Utah.
This boom coincides with a dramatic rise in U.S. electricity prices, driven by inflation and the rising cost of adapting to wildfires, hurricanes, and other extreme weather. But these massive facilities have also strained the grid — and in some cases — contributed to rising prices. Fo... Read more
