President Donald Trump on Thursday had governors and electricity companies join a voluntary pledge to shield U.S. consumers from higher utility bills from data centers — a sign of how the artificial intelligence build-out has become a lightning rod of controversy before the midterm elections.
The president first announced the pledge with leading AI and tech companies in March, but that initial commitment has done little to comfort voters who are already grappling with affordability issues as they worry about competing for electricity, water and land with tech companies controlled by billionaires. It’s unclear, with electricity demand already growing, whether consumers would see genuine savings.
Trump is doubling down on the pledge at a time when the broader social contract is being rewritten by AI, a technology that is evolving so quickly in its capabilities that governments are struggling over how to provide oversight.
The president, in remarks about the pledge at the Environmental Protection Agency, called on the gathered executives and governors to sell the public on data centers, stressing that the cities and towns that do have them will be “rich.”
“You have to convince your community,” Trump said. “You can’t fight it. You have to go with it.”
