How to get Big Tech to pay your energy bills
Art Hunter
The tech industry needs massive amounts of electricity. The most overlooked power plant in the United States isn’t a gas turbine or a solar farm: It’s your house.
Tech companies are locked into a race to build artificial intelligence that comes down to speed and scale. AI infrastructure such as data centers, some argue, plays the role that railroads and canals did in the 19th century: The first firms to dominate will control the era’s most transformative technology. Tech giants are expected to pour about $2.7 trillion into data centers and AI infrastructure in the United States by 2030, McKinsey estimates, more than one Manhattan Project every month, in inflation‑adjusted terms.
All that new equipment needs more electricity than the grid can deliver.
Google, Meta and others have resorted to modified jet engines, diesel generators and rebooting nuclear and coal plants to power their data centers, while asking electric utilities for grid upgrades. That’s contributing to rising electricity prices, up 42 percent since 2020.