White House expands pledge to utilities, data centers to control AI power costs

White House to rally utilities, data centers over AI power costs

WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) - The White House plans to bring together utility companies and data center developers for a voluntary pledge designed to ensure rapid growth in electricity demand from artificial intelligence does not drive up power bills for households and businesses, according to three people familiar with the plans. An event to announce the initiative is expected in the coming weeks, with several companies taking part and vowing to protect current ratepayers from shouldering all the costs of AI expansion. The ⁠guest list is still being finalized, the sources said. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Surging demand from power-hungry data centers has prompted regulators, consumer advocates and lawmakers in several states to warn that households could end up subsidizing grid upgrades needed to serve some of the world's largest technology companies, raising questions over whether the pledge will deliver concrete commitments or remain largely symbolic. As President Donald Trump's administration pushes to accelerate the expansion of AI infrastructure, it hopes to avoid a political backlash over rising electricity bills. Earlier this year, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI signed a voluntary "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" at a White House ceremony, committing to finance ⁠the electricity infrastructure needed for their AI projects rather than passing those costs on to existing utility customers. The companies agreed to help pay for new power generation, grid upgrades and other costs tied to their data centers, including unused reserved capacity. The White House said the commitments were designed to prevent households from subsidizing the growth of AI infrastructure. The new ⁠event is expected to broaden those commitments by bringing together electric utilities, companies that build and operate data centers on behalf of Big Tech, and governors of states on the front lines of expanding the power infrastructure needed to accommodate the ⁠expected surge in electricity demand, the people familiar with the plans said. The White House has argued that the United States can win the global AI race only by rapidly expanding electricity generation and transmission, while ⁠maintaining that consumers should not bear the financial burden of that buildout. Administration officials have cast the initiative as an effort to reassure voters that AI investment and lower energy costs can coexist. Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw and Laila Kearney; additional reporting by Courtney Rozen and Sergio Non; Editing by Nia Williams Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

The White House's next AI energy pledge targets the utilities

Big Tech promised in March that data centres would not raise household bills. Now the administration is going after the companies that actually send the bills. The White House is preparing an event, expected within weeks, at which electric utilities, the companies that build and run data centres for Big Tech, and governors of the states hosting the biggest buildouts will be asked to promise that none of this will end up on household electricity bills. Three people familiar with the plans described the initiative to Reuters. The guest list is still being finalised, and the mechanism, as before, is a voluntary pledge. It extends a document the administration already has. In March, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge at a White House ceremony, committing to fund the generation and grid upgrades their projects require rather than passing the cost to existing customers, including for capacity they reserve and do not use. "President Trump's Ratepayer Protection Pledge has been so impactful that additional stakeholders also want to sign it," a White House official said, which is one reading of what is happening. Another is that the original pledge covered the wrong companies. Hyperscalers do not set retail tariffs. Utilities and state regulators do, and if the political objective is to keep bills flat, the signatures that matter are theirs. Bringing in governors, who appoint or oversee the public utility commissions that approve rate increases, suggests the administration understands exactly where the decision actually sits. The March pledge asked its signatories to build, bring, or buy the generation their data centres need, to negotiate separate rate structures with utilities and states, to pay for reserved capacity whether or not they use it, and to sell surplus generation back to the grid. Read as an engineering document, it is coherent. Read as a legal one, it is a press release. The pledge remains voluntary and non-binding, and the White House has no authority over electricity markets. Whatever the utilities sign will be a statement of intent, filed alongside rate cases that will be argued on their own terms, before commissioners who are not bound by anything signed in Washington. The pressure behind this is not hypothetical. Regulators, consumer advocates, and lawmakers in several states have warned that households are on course to subsidise grid upgrades built for some of the largest companies on earth. American utilities are planning around $1.4 trillion of capital spending by 2030 to serve AI demand, and residential customers could carry a substantial share of it. Industrial users are already feeling it: Rust Belt manufacturers have watched capacity charges climb steeply as data centres bid for the same megawatts. Congress has been circling. The House has moved on a bill to push data centre energy costs back onto the companies creating them, which is the same objective as the pledge, pursued with a statute rather than a signing ceremony. The administration's position is that America wins the AI race only by building generation and transmission quickly, and that consumers should not pay for the privilege. Those two commitments are not obviously compatible, which is why the pledge exists: it is the instrument that lets the government promise both at once without choosing. Federal energy regulators have meanwhile been fast-tracking grid connections for data centres, which speeds the buildout the pledge is meant to make painless. Electricity prices are the rare technology story that reaches voters through their letterbox. An administration that has staked considerable political capital on AI infrastructure is now trying to ensure that the bill arriving each month does not become an argument against it. No date has been set, and the White House has not said which utilities have agreed to attend. The event, and the length of the guest list, will indicate how many of them think a voluntary promise about future rates is a thing they can safely make.

White House to rally utilities, data centers over AI power costs

The White House plans a voluntary pledge for utility companies and data centers. This initiative aims to manage AI's growing electricity demand without raising consumer costs. Several major tech firms previously signed a similar pledge to fund infrastructure. The new event will broaden commitments and include governors from key states. Administration officials seek to assure voters that AI growth and lower energy costs can coexist. The White House plans to bring together utility companies and data center developers for a voluntary pledge designed to ensure rapid growth in electricity demand from artificial intelligence does not drive up power bills for households and businesses, according to three people familiar with the plans. An event to announce the initiative is expected in the coming weeks, with several companies taking part ⁠and vowing ⁠to protect current ratepayers from shouldering all the costs of AI expansion. The guest list is still being finalized, the sources said. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Surging demand from power-hungry data centers has prompted regulators, consumer advocates and lawmakers in several states to warn that households could end up subsidizing grid upgrades needed to serve some of the world's largest technology companies, raising questions over whether the pledge will deliver concrete ⁠commitments or remain largely symbolic. As President Donald Trump's administration pushes to accelerate the expansion of AI infrastructure, it hopes to avoid a political backlash over rising electricity ⁠bills. Earlier this year, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI signed a voluntary "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" at a White House ceremony, committing to finance the electricity infrastructure needed for their AI projects rather than passing those costs on to existing utility customers. The companies agreed to help pay for new power generation, grid upgrades and other costs tied to their data centers, including unused reserved capacity. The White House said the commitments were designed to prevent households from subsidizing the growth of AI infrastructure. The new event is expected to broaden those commitments by bringing together electric utilities, companies that build and operate data centers on behalf of Big Tech, and governors of ⁠states on the front lines of expanding the power infrastructure needed to accommodate the expected surge in electricity demand, the people familiar with the plans said. The White House has argued that the United States can win the global AI race only by rapidly expanding electricity generation and transmission, while maintaining that consumers should not bear the financial burden of that buildout. Administration officials have cast the initiative as an effort to reassure voters that AI investment and lower energy costs can coexist.

White House to rally utilities, data centers for AI power cost pledge, sources say

WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) - The White House plans to bring together utility companies and data center developers to make a voluntary pledge designed to ensure that rapid growth in electricity demand from artificial intelligence does not drive up power bills for households and businesses, according to three people familiar with the plans. An event to announce the initiative is expected in the coming weeks, with several companies taking part and vowing to protect current ratepayers from shouldering all the costs of AI expansion. The guest list is still being finalized, the sources said. Surging demand from power-hungry data centers has prompted regulators, consumer advocates and lawmakers in several states to warn that households could end up subsidizing grid upgrades needed to serve some of the world's largest technology companies, raising questions over whether the pledge will deliver concrete commitments or remain largely symbolic. As President Donald Trump's administration pushes to accelerate the expansion of AI infrastructure, it hopes to avoid a political backlash over rising electricity bills. Earlier this year, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI signed a voluntary "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" at a White House ceremony, committing to finance the electricity infrastructure needed for their AI projects rather than passing those costs on to existing utility customers. The companies agreed to help pay for new power generation, grid upgrades and other costs tied to their data centers, including unused reserved capacity. The White House said the commitments were designed to prevent households from subsidizing the growth of AI infrastructure. "President Trump's Ratepayer Protection Pledge has been so impactful that additional stakeholders also want to sign it," a White House official told Reuters. The new event is expected to broaden those commitments by bringing together electric utilities, companies that build and operate data centers on behalf of Big Tech, and governors of states leading the expansion of the power infrastructure needed to accommodate the expected surge in electricity demand, the people familiar with the plans said. The White House has argued that the United States can win the global AI race only by rapidly expanding electricity generation and transmission, while maintaining that consumers should not bear the financial burden of that buildout. Administration officials have cast the initiative as an effort to reassure voters that AI investment and lower energy costs can coexist. (Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Laila Kearney; additional reporting by Courtney Rozen and Sergio Non; Editing by Nia Williams) By Jarrett Renshaw and Laila Kearney