The expansion of AI data centers connecting to the national power grid has contributed to rising consumer electricity costs, pushing the average national electricity price up by over 6% in the past year.

This situation doesn’t bode well for the incumbents as the fall elections approach, and President Donald Trump highlighted the issue in his State of the Union address last night.

“We are informing major tech corporations of their duty to meet their own power requirements,” Trump stated. “They have the option to construct their own power facilities as part of their operations, ensuring that no one’s prices will escalate.”

The significant tech players involved are already aware. In recent weeks, they have made public pledges to manage electricity expenses by establishing their own power generation, paying higher tariffs, or both, as part of a larger strategy to address public relations challenges related to data center growth and to gain the trust of hesitant communities.

On January 11, Microsoft revealed its initiative “to guarantee that the electricity costs associated with operating our datacenters won’t be passed onto residential consumers.” On January 26, OpenAI promised to “bear its own energy costs, ensuring that our activities won’t raise your energy bills.” On February 11, Anthropic echoed this commitment to “offset the increased electricity costs that consumers incur due to our data centers.” Yesterday, Google unveiled the world’s largest battery project to support a data center in Minnesota.

What these pledges will mean in terms of implementation, and who will decide which data centers are accountable for which price hikes, is still unclear. The White House has not disclosed the proposed pledge’s text.

“An informal agreement with Big Tech on data center expenses falls short,” Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly remarked on social media. “Americans deserve assurance that energy costs won’t escalate and that local communities will have input.”

White House representative Taylor Rodgers stated that next week, companies will send delegates to officially sign the pledge at the White House. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI are reportedly included among those expected to show up. Nevertheless, none of the companies have verified their participation.

Even if tech firms choose to absorb electricity costs, on-site power generation might not solve all issues — these facilities can still negatively impact the surrounding ecosystem and may strain supply chains for natural gas, turbines, solar panels, and batteries, depending on the methods companies select to fuel their computing needs.