Microsoft mentioned on Tuesday that it could be taking a sequence of steps in direction of changing into a “good neighbor” in communities the place it’s building data centers—together with promising to ask public utilities to set greater electrical energy charges for data centers.
Talking onstage at an occasion in Nice Falls, Virginia, Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith instantly referenced a growing national pushback to knowledge facilities, describing it as creating “a second in time when we have to hear, and we have to deal with these considerations head-on.”
“Once I go to communities across the nation, folks have questions—pointed questions. They even have considerations,” Smith mentioned, as a slide confirmed headlines from varied information retailers about opposition to knowledge facilities. “They’re the kind of questions that we have to heed… We’re at a second of time when folks have loads on their thoughts. They fear in regards to the worth of electrical energy. They marvel what this massive knowledge middle will imply to their water provide. They have a look at this know-how and ask, what is going to it imply for the roles of the long run? What’s going to it imply for the adults of in the present day? What’s going to it imply for his or her kids?”
The announcement follows a put up from President Donald Trump on Truth Social Monday through which he pledged that his administration would work with “main American Expertise Firms,” together with Microsoft, to be sure that knowledge facilities don’t inflate buyer utility payments.
“We’re the ‘HOTTEST’ Nation within the World, and Quantity One in AI,” Trump wrote within the put up, through which he additionally accused Democrats of being chargeable for the rise in utility payments. “Information Facilities are key to that growth, and retaining Individuals FREE and SECURE however, the large Expertise Firms who construct them should ‘pay their very own means.’”
Common electrical energy payments have risen faster than inflation lately in lots of components of the nation. These worth hikes are attributable to quite a lot of components, together with the prices of repairing and sustaining the nation’s getting older electrical grid. However greater demand for electrical energy—together with from knowledge facilities, which will also be costly to hook up with the grid—performs a task. As know-how corporations and utilities are predicting an enormous new want for vitality from the nationwide knowledge middle buildout, the Power Data Administration projects that electrical payments will maintain rising by means of 2026.
Issues round knowledge facilities and electrical energy payments performed a key role in a number of native and state midterm elections final 12 months, whereas analysis launched final fall exhibits that native opposition to knowledge facilities skyrocketed within the second quarter of 2025, resulting in billions of {dollars} in initiatives stalled or cancelled. The political divide in opposition to knowledge facilities seems to be bipartisan. In latest months, influential former Trump strategist Steve Bannon has begun talking in opposition to the energy and water costs of data centers on his Conflict Room podcast, half of a bigger pushback from some MAGA figureheads in opposition to the AI buildout within the US.
The Trump administration, against this, has made expediting the information middle buildout within the US a key precedence. It has eliminated quite a lot of environmental protections for knowledge facilities, together with water protections, expedited the review of chemicals involved in their use, and inspired their development on federal land. The Division of Power has additionally instructed the Federal Power Regulatory Fee, which oversees interstate transmission, to work on a collection of points round knowledge facilities and the grid.
Microsoft, which has round 100 knowledge facilities deliberate or underneath building throughout the nation, has met with some native pushback to a few of its initiatives. In October, the corporate canceled plans for an information middle in Wisconsin attributable to native opposition; the group main the cost in opposition to that challenge warned of a possible “5-15% price hike to subsidize low cost energy.” The corporate revealed final week that it was additionally behind a proposed challenge in Michigan, which was put on hold in December following considerations from group members. A whole lot of residents attended a planning commission meeting for the challenge Monday night time, with many telling native media they have been there to precise opposition.
