"Tech companies have paid lip service" - US government is asking AI giants why data centers are leading to rising bills
AI workloads are driving energy demand at city-scale levels
· TechRadarNews By Efosa Udinmwen published 21 December 2025
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- US senators accuse Big Tech of leaving households to pay soaring electricity bills
- Data centers consume hundreds of megawatts, severely straining regional power grids
- Private contracts hide which companies are truly paying for power expansion
Three U.S. Democratic Senators - Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Richard Blumenthal - are pressing major technology firms to explain why electricity bills continue to rise in regions packed with large data facilities.
Their letters target companies deeply invested in cloud hosting and large-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The lawmakers argue that public assurances about absorbing power-related costs do not align with what consumers are experiencing through higher utility rates.
Tech firms under fire for power bill failures
"Tech companies have paid lip service in support of covering their data centers' energy costs, but their actions have shown the opposite," the trio wrote.
"When utilities expand their grid infrastructure, they incorporate the cost of expansion into their utility rates, passing the extra costs onto their customers," they added.
On the same day the letters became public, Amazon released a study it had commissioned from Energy and Environmental Economics.
The report claims that data center hosting facilities generate enough revenue for utilities to offset the cost of serving them.
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