Next week, leading technology companies in the United States will meet with President Trump at the White House. White House officials said that these tech companies will commit to ensuring that the operation of their data centers will not increase electricity costs for surrounding American residents.
On Wednesday, a White House official told Epoch Times, “Several major tech companies will gather at the White House next week to formally sign the ‘Rate Payer Protection Pledge’ with President Trump, a initiative that the President announced in his historic State of the Union address.”
The initiative requires tech giants to build, introduce, or procure their own power when constructing artificial intelligence (AI) data centers to avoid a significant increase in electricity costs for American citizens.
The event is scheduled for March 4th, with representatives from companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI set to attend.
The White House official added, “President Trump is committed to ensuring America’s leadership in the field of AI, while also lowering living costs for working families.”
On Tuesday night, Trump delivered a wide-ranging and record-breaking State of the Union address at the Capitol building. During his speech, he revealed this plan for the first time.
“We tell these tech giants that they have a responsibility to meet their own power needs,” Trump said. “They can build power plants within their facilities so that it won’t lead to an increase in electricity prices; in many cases, community electricity prices may even decrease significantly.”
In July 2025, Trump signed an executive order aimed at streamlining the development process for data centers in the United States.
The executive order stated, “These projects include AI data centers and their related infrastructure, such as high-voltage transmission lines and other equipment. This administration will prioritize simplifying federal regulatory procedures to promote the rapid and efficient construction of such infrastructure.”
The executive order requires that any data center must have over 100 Megawatts of additional power load dedicated to AI inference, training, simulation, or synthetic data generation.
Rising electricity costs due to data center development have become a key issue in the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia last November.
Average energy expenditures for New Jersey residents increased by 19% from 2024 to 2025.
Virginia residents experienced a 30% increase in electricity prices from 2020 to 2023, and it is projected that the state may face an additional rate increase of up to 21% by 2027.
Tech giants are planning a series of energy projects to supply power to data centers, including Meta building a 400 Megawatt natural gas power plant in New Albany, Ohio; additionally, Energy Northwest is collaborating with Amazon to construct the “Cascade Advanced Energy Facility,” a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) near Richland, Washington.
(Reference from the English Epoch Times)