WASHINGTON, D.C. — The artificial intelligence (AI) boom is driving a surge in new data centers across the country — but the massive power demand is sparking debate in communities about energy costs and infrastructure.
Lawmakers and energy leaders are trying to position the United States as the leader in the AI revolution while minimizing the impact on local communities and energy costs.
Data centers, facilities that power everything from chatbots to cloud computing, consume enormous amounts of electricity, raising concerns about whether local communities will shoulder the cost.
“I think Pennsylvania has the possibility to be at the absolute lead. It’s going to create hundreds of thousands of great jobs for welders and steam fitters, electricians,” said Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., adding that data centers need to be introduced in a way that supports communities in the form of job growth and taxpayer benefits.
“We also have to make sure that energy prices don’t go up,” McCormick added.
The debate comes not long after President Donald Trump rolled out a new “ratepayer protection pledge.”
“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs. 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 and very substantially down,” said President Trump during the State of the Union.
The goal with the voluntary pledge is to prevent electricity demand from data centers from driving up utility bills for households and small businesses.
“People that are watching now, you all pay your bills, your electrical bills, right? And these companies should too. They should never push those bills up for people,” said Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa.
Energy policy is quickly becoming central to the AI development race. Lawmakers say more power production is key to keeping energy affordable.
“The quickest way to bring them down is the cost of energy. Because every one of us, no matter what we do, energy, is a part of our life,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa.
But renewable energy advocates say the government is getting in its own way.
“They’re pursuing policies that are fundamentally opposed to each other,” said Sean Gallagher, Senior Vice President of Policy at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
The solar industry is still rebounding after significant reductions for federal solar incentives in last year’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act.
Gallagher says those cuts, and what he calls a federal permitting blockade for new solar facilities, will not help with rising costs.
“That’s got to change in order for the country to be able to meet its energy dominance agenda for solar and battery storage, to contribute to keeping prices down and to meet the demand that’s being placed on the system by things like new data centers,” said Gallagher about the permitting blockade. “If we’re going to be leaders in AI, we’ve got to be leaders in energy production.”
Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, OpenAI and Amazon are among the big tech companies that have signed on to the president’s voluntary ratepayer protection pledge. However, there are still questions about how the initiative will be enforced and who will enforce it.
