Major tech firms including Google, Amazon and OpenAI have signed an agreement with the White House to bear all the costs associated with new energy infrastructure needed to power their ever-expanding data centres.
Large data centres can consume the power equivalent to the needs of tens of thousands of homes every year. As the sector expands, these large, site-specific demands can add pressure to local parts of the grid and create challenges around connecting new developments.
The rapid growth in the number of data centres across the US, driven by the AI boom, has seen electricity prices for average Americans rise by 6-7% over the previous 12 months. With recent events in the Middle East disrupting oil supply chains, there are concerns that energy prices could rise even further, endangering the electoral chances of Republican candidates already beset with concerns from voters about the cost-of-living crisis.
President Donald Trump met with representatives of Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft...