WATCH: Trump expands pledge aimed at shielding consumers from energy cost hikes due to data centers

By — Josh Boak, Associated Press Josh Boak, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-expands-pledge-aimed-at-shielding-consumers-from-energy-cost-hikes-due-to-data-centers Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter WATCH: Trump expands pledge aimed at shielding consumers from energy cost hikes due to data centers Politics Jul 23, 2026 3:24 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday had governors and electricity companies join a voluntary pledge to shield U.S. consumers from higher utility bills from data centers — a sign of how the artificial intelligence build-out has become a lightning rod of controversy before the midterm elections. Watch Trump's remarks in the video player above. The president first announced the pledge with leading AI and tech companies in March, but that initial commitment has done little to comfort voters who are already grappling with affordability issues as they worry about competing for electricity, water and land with tech companies controlled by billionaires. It's unclear, with electricity demand already growing, whether consumers would see genuine savings. WATCH: Janesville, once a symbol of the Great Recession, becomes AI data center battleground Trump is doubling down on the pledge at a time when the broader social contract is being rewritten by AI, a technology that is evolving so quickly in its capabilities that governments are struggling over how to provide oversight. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. "AI is probably the biggest thing anybody's ever seen, and whoever wins that race is probably going to win, period," Trump said in remarks at the Environmental Protection Agency as part of the pledge signing. Concerns about data centers cross party lines The president promised that electricity prices would drop because of the nonbinding pledge, saying there would be a surplus of power. It's not clear that data centers generating their own electricity will be sufficient to overcome the rising demand for electricity, but that did not deter Trump from saying that utility bills — a major concern for voters — will be lower. READ MORE: When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure? "Electricity bills for American families will actually come down," Trump said. "They're going to have a lot of electricity left over, and they'll put that into the grid." The White House said that nearly 200 additional stakeholders, including utilities, data center developers and governors, have committed to the pledge. The pledge would cover 80% of all power delivered to U.S. households and businesses. A slowdown in data center construction could derail what has been one of the dominant drivers of U.S. economic growth, in addition to possibly ceding the U.S. edge in cultivating the technology to China and create national