Trump announces that AI companies must 'pay their own way' for energy consumption to prevent consumer utility bills from going up

Donald Trump, sometime reality TV star and now real-world President of these United States, has announced he will prevent AI companies with huge data centers and commensurately massive electricity demands from forcing up utility bills for consumers.

"I never want Americans to pay higher Electricity bills because of Data Centers," Trump said on Truth Social. Trump said his administration is working with AI companies in unspecified ways to ensure this does not happen.

He also revealed that Microsoft will be the first such company to announce measures later this week entailing non-specific "major changes". The President emphasised the importance of AI companies but said they must nevertheless pay their own way when it comes to energy.

"We are the 'HOTTEST' Country in the World, and Number One in AI. Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must 'pay their own way,'" Trump said.

Trump also called out the previous Biden administration and "Radical Left" for a claimed 30% spike in energy prices for average American households.

It's probably redundant to point out that government interference in markets and prices is an approach more traditionally associated with the left, while the right has generally subscribed to the notion of free markets as efficient price setting mechanisms. But hey ho.

Actually, if the President is going to get involved in this sort of market manipulation, maybe he could twist the arms of memory companies and make sure that we're not all paying through the nose for DDR5. Oh, and 30% off Nvidia GPUs would be appreciated, you know, while you're at it.

The issue here, of course, the huge demand for energy from data centers in the US, which the IEA predicts will double to around 400 TWh by 2030. Annual energy consumption in the US is currently around 4,000 TWh.

We will presumably find out later this week some more details of what Microsoft at least is proposing to do with regard to data center energy consumption. Until then, watch this space.