The problem with Trump’s AI power pledge

The politics of AI and electricity came to the White House this week.

On Wednesday, the biggest tech companies in the world — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle — gathered in Washington to sign what the administration is calling a “ratepayer protection pledge.” The promise: data centers will pay for their own power and grid integration costs.

But is anything actually changing? Or is it just political theater?

This week, we’ll look at the politics and intention of the announcement, along with some real-world models emerging for powering the AI economy.

In Minnesota, Google is pulling together a package of renewables, long-duration storage, and distributed batteries for a planned data center. 

In Mississippi, xAI continues to build unpermitted gas engines and explicitly flouting air quality regulations.

And the Energy Department is also backing a grid modernization project that includes gas, nuclear, batteries, hydropower, and transmission upgrades. 

Three models. Three very different bets on what the future of AI power looks like. Which one wins out? And more importantly, who pays?

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