White House to host Big Tech in pledge to rein in power costs

By Jarrett Renshaw and Laila Kearney

Feb 25 (Reuters) – The White House said on Thursday it will host leading data center and artificial intelligence companies next week including Microsoft, Anthropic and Meta Platforms to formalize a deal to shield consumers from rising power costs.

The meeting, scheduled for March 4 and first reported by Reuters, is expected to advance an initiative President Donald Trump unveiled during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, in which he said he had told major technology firms they must build their own power plants to run the rapidly-expanding fleet of data centers and other artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The pledge under discussion is expected to resemble commitments already offered earlier this year by Microsoft to invest in new electricity generation and efficiency measures.

“Major Tech companies will join President Trump at the White House next week to formally sign the Rate Payer Protection Pledge that he announced during his historic State of the Union address,” said Taylor Rogers, White House spokeswoman.

The Trump administration supports efforts to advance artificial intelligence in competition with China, but the impacts of the proliferation of AI data centers on power prices have become a potential vulnerability for Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections.

Microsoft did not say whether it would be in attendance next week or whether it would sign any new pledge. “We appreciate the Administration’s work to ensure that data centers don’t contribute to higher electricity prices for consumers,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President.

A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.

“American families shouldn’t pick up the tab for AI,” Anthropic spokesperson Sarah Heck wrote on X. “In support of the (White House) rate payer protection pledge, Anthropic has committed to covering 100% of electricity price increases that consumers face from our data centers.”

Trump has made the global AI race, and securing the vast amounts of electricity needed to power it, a primary focus of his second term. That agenda, however, has become politically precarious ahead of the midterms as energy demand growth from data centers pushes up power bills over a wide swath of the country.

The recent proliferation of giant data center projects — needed for the expansion of artificial intelligence technologies — has been met with increasing local and state protests over concerns of rising bills and pollution tied to the developments. Some data center plans, or related power projects, have been cancelled or postponed following opposition from surrounding towns. 

Last month, the Trump administration and several governors from states in the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection, released a framework for addressing surging power bills in the region. 

PJM covers the world’s biggest concentration of data centers. Projections for a massive increase in the number of the centers connecting to the grid has led some power costs in the market to surge by about 1000% in less than two years.  

Part of the White House plan to rein in power costs tied to data centers will build on the PJM framework, two sources told Reuters.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney and Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Timothy Gardner)