President Trump signed a proclamation to protect American taxpayers from rate hikes amid the increased energy usage posed by AI infrastructure.
“America’s continued economic and technological leadership depends on reliable, large-scale data center infrastructure built in the United States. Data center infrastructure is the foundation of the internet, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI), and it supports our economic and national security,” the proclamation declares. “In order to harness the full power of American innovation and ensure that Americans do not become reliant on foreign industries, the development of large-scale data center infrastructure and AI must occur here at home, with American workers and engineers leading the way.”
Trump’s proclamation asserts that “American households must be protected against increasing energy costs” as data centers continue expanding.
According to the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, “leading United States hyperscalers and AI companies guarantee that data centers’ energy needs will not increase household electricity costs for American citizens.” Instead, the companies will “build, bring, or buy the new generation resources and electricity needed to satisfy their energy demands, and pay for all new power delivery infrastructure upgrades to service their data centers.” Companies will further negotiate separate rate structures with utility and state officials and invest in reliable grid networks.
A White House fact sheet states that Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI signed the pledge.
President Trump announced the ratepayer effort in February. “We have an old grid. It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed,” President Trump said during the State of the Union address. He explained that companies can construct their own plants and produce their own electricity.
