President Donald Trump said Tuesday that top tech companies have to cover their own power needs when they are building data centers.
“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” Trump said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, adding, “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.”
Trump said he negotiated a new “rate-payer protection pledge.” He did not specify what the pledge entailed or which companies had agreed to it.
“They’re going to produce their own electricity,” he said.
Tech companies have already begun building their own off-grid infrastructure.
Politico first reported on the pledge earlier on Tuesday, saying tech companies had agreed to pay more for electricity in places near data centers. A White House spokesperson confirmed the report to Business Insider but did not provide additional details.
The announcement comes as Big Tech companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build AI infrastructure and data centers, driving up electricity demand in the US. Utility costs are rising across the US as a result of the increased electricity demand for data centers, a report from the Center for American Progress found.
Trump has previously said Americans should not have to pay higher electricity costs due to data centers, and that the companies that build them “must pay their own way.”
Decisions about utility costs are typically made at the state and local levels. It’s unclear how the newly announced pledges would be implemented.
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