Trump says Microsoft will pay more for its data centers’ electricity | Technology
Donald Trump says he is partnering with tech companies to ensure large energy-hungry data centers vital to artificial intelligence do not drive up electricity bills in the US. On Tuesday, the US president announced that Microsoft was “first.”
“We are the ‘HOTEST’ Country in the World and Number One in Artificial Intelligence. Data Centers are key to this boom and keep Americans FREE and SAFE, but the big Tech Companies that build them must ‘pay their own way.'” Trump wrote at Truth Social. “Thank you and congratulations to Microsoft.”
Microsoft president Brad Smith unveiled the company’s plan at an event titled Community-First AI Infrastructure near the White House on Tuesday. He said the initiative aims to minimize water use and ensure that Microsoft’s electricity use does not increase individuals’ electricity usage charges. He said the company would pay property taxes in the cities where Microsoft has data centers and would accept neither tax breaks nor electricity rate reductions.
“AI infrastructure, like major construction in the past, is expensive and complex,” Smith wrote. blog post on Tuesday. “This reopens a long-standing question: How can our nation build transformative infrastructure in a way that strengthens rather than strains the local communities in which it is rooted?”
Trump embraced artificial intelligence during his second term in office, hosting tech CEOs at the White House and Mar-a-Lago. He signed executive orders to unleash artificial intelligence, accelerate innovation and ease environmental rules to expedite federal permitting for data centers. But as concerns about affordability and backlash against data centers spread across the country, Trump appears to be changing his tune.
Trump said he started his electric bill reduction plan with Microsoft but is also working with other major technology companies to make similar commitments.
As data centers proliferated across the country, local communities protested the projects, saying the facilities increased electricity costs, depleted water resources and polluted neighborhoods. The outrage consists of two parties; They range from red states like Oklahoma, Tennessee and Louisiana to blue states like Oregon, California and New York. In rural Wisconsin, Microsoft canceled plans for a new data center following community opposition that included concerns about an increase in electricity rates.
Data centers consume large amounts of power and water, and facilities for AI are particularly dense. A large-scale data center can use the same amount of electricity as a small city and consume as much as a million gallons of water per day. International Energy Agency estimates total electricity from data centers worldwide Could double by 2026 from 2022 levels – roughly equal to the annual use of the entire nation of Japan.
Microsoft has seen carbon emissions rise 23% since 2020 due to the proliferation of AI data centers. Other tech companies, including Google, Amazon and Meta, have also seen significant increases in their emissions due to the boom in artificial intelligence.
