Trump meets with tech giants to discuss energy pledges ahead of midterm elections

U.S. president Donald Trump will'meet with leaders of major technology companies on Wednesday, including Google, Meta and?OpenAI to formalize an agreement to protect consumers from the rising costs of electricity due to the rapid growth in energy-intensive data centres.

The White House announced that the "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" announced by Trump during his State of the Union Address would see tech companies commit to measures to ensure the boom of artificial intelligence infrastructure doesn't translate into higher utility bills for homes and small businesses.

This initiative was launched in advance of the midterm elections scheduled for November. Voters are 'increasingly worried about energy affordability, and the strain that data centers place on the power grids.

According to sources familiar with these plans, the pledges will 'include an agreement by technology companies that they will bring or purchase electricity for their data centres, whether from new power plants, or existing plants, with expanded output capacity.

Sources said that they are likely to include "commitments" from Big Tech, such as the payment of 'upgrades to power delivery systems' and special electricity rate agreements between utilities.

Some of the largest names in tech are expected to attend the White House. They have invested billions of dollars in AI computing power that consumes vast amounts of energy.

Trump has encouraged these firms to build or secure dedicated capacity to meet the demand, rather than relying on regional grids. This is part of an effort to balance technology competitiveness and political and economic concerns regarding energy costs.

Jon Gordon, who is a director at Advanced Energy United (a trade group for clean energy that includes data centers), said that it's unclear whether the effort will be able to?build new supplies of electric quickly enough to relieve pressure on grids.

He added that this is partly due to Trump’s policy of increasing fossil fuels like natural gas and coal for data centres, rather than quicker-build sources such as?solar or wind.

Gordon said that the real problem was the inability of the generation to be online quickly enough to meet data center demands. "Hyperscalers?paying for the generation doesn't make it any faster."

Both supporters and critics will be closely watching to see if the pledge results in concrete commitments, or if it remains largely symbolic. This is because lawmakers and consumer groups are calling for stronger protections that prevent utility bill increases linked to data center builds-outs. (Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Laila Kearney and Aurora Ellis)

(source: Reuters)