President Donald Trump joined government officials and energy companies Thursday to expand an initiative intended to protect Americans from increasing electricity rates caused by the rapid build-out of artificial intelligence data centers.

As part of the Trump administration’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, tech companies agree to either fund or build the infrastructure needed to power their data centers instead of passing the costs on to consumers.

What You Need To Know

  • President Donald Trump joined government officials and energy companies on Thursday to expand an initiative intended to protect Americans from increasing electricity rates caused by the rapid build out of artificial intelligence data centers

  • As part of the Trump administration’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, tech companies agree to either fund or build the infrastructure needed to power their data centers instead of passing the costs on to consumers

  • First introduced in March, the voluntary and non-binding pledge now includes more than 220 utilities, tech companies, state governments and other partners, Trump said, adding, without evidence, that 80% of the power distributed in the United States is now being kept in check through the plan

  • Critics of the pledge say there are no regulations to force companies or utilities to abide by their agreements. A survey from Consumer Reports found that 75% of American adults lacked confidence that large tech developers would truly cover all the costs associated with their data centers’ electricity demands

“We’re insisting that AI data centers and big tech companies pay their own way,” Trump said at an event at Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, where he was joined by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and the governors of Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Nebraska.

“I’ve always said that America’s goal must be to dominate the future, and that includes being the No. 1 superpower in artificial intelligence,” he said. “I think it’s bigger than the internet. It’s bigger than anything anyone’s seen thus far.”

And that will require a lot of electricity. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute says data centers consumed 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and are expected to use 12% by 2030.

First introduced in March, the voluntary and nonbinding pledge now includes more than 220 utilities, tech companies, state governments and other partners, Trump said, adding, without evidence, that 80% of the power distributed in the United States is now being kept in check through the plan.

Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI and Amazon are among the companies that have already committed to the Trump administration’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge.

Critics of the pledge say there are no regulations to force companies or utilities to abide by their agreements. A survey from Consumer Reports found that 75% of American adults lacked confidence that large tech developers would truly cover all the costs associated with their data centers’ electricity demands.

The consulting and technology services company ICF estimates that data centers could increase electricity demand 25% by 2030 and that would in turn cause monthly utility bills to increase by as much as 40% over the next five years.

The president said rates will go down as the tech companies that are building electricity plants put the leftover energy onto the grid.

Trump credited the pledge for allowing the utility Georgia Power to freeze its base electricity rate until 2029 because of the construction of a Google data center in the state. He also credited the construction of the Alliant Energy data center in Iowa with freezing electricity rates for consumers for at least five years.

“This allows America to maintain our lead in artificial intelligence by driving rapid investment in our country, rapid investment in new power infrastructure on favorable terms with the developers of data centers that have stopped the rise of electricity prices where these investments have been made,” Wright said.

“Sadly, he added, “we see this issue being politicized now.”

Opposition to data centers has spiraled into a bipartisan issue. While data center companies say their facilities help to generate tax revenues for school districts and reduce property taxes for homeowners, voters are worried about the environmental impacts and the prospect of data centers making their communities more expensive and less livable.

Earlier this month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order to temporarily ban new large data centers, saying it would protect the electricity grid in her state from massive energy demands and New York residents from increased utility bills.

Legislators in several other states, including Maine and Michigan, have also debated moratoriums while states, including Georgia and Louisiana, have embraced new data center construction.

“In Louisiana, we didn’t just follow the president’s model,” GOP Gov. Jeff Landry said of the pledge at Thursday’s event. “We pioneered it. Our first-of-a-kind partnership with Meta should be a template, not an exception.”

Landry said Meta, not the state’s ratepayers, is funding all new electricity generation and transmission upgrades in the state. He estimates that Louisiana ratepayers will save $2.6 billion in electricity costs over the course of its 15-year deal with the California-based tech company while simultaneously strengthening its grid reliability and reducing its resiliency costs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.