Microsoft Has a Plan to Keep Its Data Centers From Raising Your Electric Bill

Microsoft said connected Tuesday that it would beryllium taking a bid of steps towards becoming a “good neighbor” successful communities wherever it is gathering information centers—including promising to inquire nationalist utilities to acceptable higher energy rates for information centers.

Speaking onstage astatine an lawsuit successful Great Falls, Virginia, Microsoft vice seat and president Brad Smith straight referenced a increasing nationalist pushback to information centers, describing it arsenic creating “a infinitesimal successful clip erstwhile we request to listen, and we request to code these concerns head-on.”

“When I sojourn communities astir the country, radical person questions—pointed questions. They adjacent person concerns,” Smith said, arsenic a descent showed headlines from assorted quality outlets astir absorption to information centers. “They are the benignant of questions that we request to heed… We are astatine a infinitesimal of clip erstwhile radical person a batch connected their mind. They interest astir the terms of electricity. They wonderment what this large information halfway volition mean to their h2o supply. They look astatine this exertion and ask, what volition it mean for the jobs of the future? What volition it mean for the adults of today? What volition it mean for their children?”

The announcement follows a station from President Donald Trump connected Truth Social Monday successful which helium pledged that his medication would enactment with “major American Technology Companies,” including Microsoft, to marque definite that information centers don’t inflate lawsuit inferior bills.

“We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country successful the World, and Number One successful AI,” Trump wrote successful the post, successful which helium besides accused Democrats of being liable for the emergence successful inferior bills. “Data Centers are cardinal to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the large Technology Companies who physique them indispensable ‘pay their ain way.’”

Average energy bills person risen faster than ostentation successful caller years successful galore parts of the country. These terms hikes are owed to a assortment of factors, including the costs of repairing and maintaining the country’s aging electrical grid. But higher request for electricity—including from information centers, which tin besides beryllium costly to link to the grid—plays a role. As exertion companies and utilities are predicting a monolithic caller request for vigor from the nationwide information halfway buildout, the Energy Information Administration projects that electrical bills volition support expanding done 2026.

Concerns astir information centers and energy bills played a cardinal relation successful respective section and authorities midterm elections past year, portion probe released past autumn shows that section absorption to information centers skyrocketed successful the 2nd 4th of 2025, starring to billions of dollars successful projects stalled oregon cancelled. The governmental disagreement against information centers appears to beryllium bipartisan. In caller months, influential erstwhile Trump strategist Steve Bannon has begun speaking against the vigor and h2o costs of information centers connected his War Room podcast, portion of a larger pushback from immoderate MAGA figureheads against the AI buildout successful the US.

The Trump administration, by contrast, has made expediting the information halfway buildout successful the US a cardinal priority. It has removed a assortment of biology protections for information centers, including h2o protections, expedited the reappraisal of chemicals progressive successful their use, and encouraged their improvement connected national land. The Department of Energy has besides instructed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate transmission, to enactment connected a suite of issues astir information centers and the grid.

Microsoft, which has astir 100 information centers planned oregon nether operation crossed the country, has met with immoderate section pushback to immoderate of its projects. In October, the institution canceled plans for a information halfway successful Wisconsin owed to section opposition; the radical starring the complaint against that task warned of a imaginable “5-15% complaint hike to subsidize inexpensive power.” The institution revealed past week that it was besides down a projected task successful Michigan, which was enactment connected clasp successful December pursuing concerns from assemblage members. Hundreds of residents attended a readying committee gathering for the task Monday night, with galore telling section media they were determination to explicit opposition.