23 state governors and 187 utility companies and data center developers have signed President Donald Trump’s “ratepayer protection pledge,” which is Washington’s way of trying to control spiraling electricity costs driven by the massive power demand of AI data centers. According to The Associated Press, some of the signers include utility companies NextEra Energy, Duke Energy, American Electric Power, Southern Co., and Pacific Gas & Electric, and data center developers Equinix, Digital Realty, and Prologis.

Trump first revealed this promise in late February during the State of the Union address and then hosted some of the biggest AI hyperscalers — including Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI — in the White House a week later to force them to spend on their own power requirements. This was supposed to help bring electricity costs down, with Energy Secretary Christ Wright saying back in March that it “will deliver more affordable, reliable, and secure energy for the American people.” The president repeated this promise during the event, saying, “Electricity bills for American families will actually come down. They’re going to have a lot of electricity left over, and they’ll put that into the grid.”

Unfortunately, the March promise had little to no effect on electricity rates across the country at the moment. Despite the White House’s promises that the pledge would lower utility bills, PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest power grid operator, slapped Maryland with a $2-billion bill for upgrading its grid to accommodate out-of-state AI data centers. Monitoring Analytics, an independent watchdog monitoring PJM Interconnection, also said that the 75.5% increase in power costs in the U.S.’s largest power region has been directly caused by data centers.

It’s unclear if these cost increases are the long-term effects of the AI build out even before the White House pledge, but it seems the administration is doubling down on it by asking states, utility companies, and data center developers to commit to it, too. Trump has been pushing for the acceleration of the adoption of AI tools and the infrastructure needed to support them, believing that it needs to win in the “AI race” to maintain its global supremacy, especially as China is neck-and-neck with the U.S. when it comes to the technology.

However, the American public is pushing back against these developments, especially as issues impacting electricity costs, water quality, noise pollution, and more that were caused by data centers are widely reported. It has gotten to the point that several jurisdictions have applied temporary bans on data center developments, including Seattle (which plays host to Amazon and Microsoft) and the state of New York. These developments threaten to derail the current administration’s AI policy, which has ordered grid operators to expedite AI data center applications.

The ratepayer protection pledge will supposedly allow the U.S. to have its data centers without punishing the common American with excessive electricity cost increases, but its critics say that it’s just a promise and cannot be legally enforced. The Associated Press says that California is trying to pass legislation that will codify these promises into law.

Oregon is the only state at the moment to have passed a law that forces developments that use more than 20 megawatts of power to pay their fair share. The POWER Act, which was passed in April 2025 — almost a full year before Trump announced the ratepayer protection pledge — forces the power bills of large electricity consumers to “reflect the true costs of their electric service.” Because of this, Portland General Electric (PGE), the state’s largest power supplier, has increased the data center power bills by 30% while also cutting residential costs by 1.3%.

It’s unclear if any of the states that have signed the pledge have similar legislation underway, or what steps the data center developers will take to follow through on their promises. Still, the U.S. president is adamant that states should support data center development within their borders. “You have to convince your community. You can’t fight it. You have to go with it,” Trump said. “If you don’t take all that money, somebody else is going to take it. You might as well do it yourselves.”

More than 70% of Americans now oppose data centers, which has resulted in bipartisan moves to block these projects. This pushback isn’t limited to just a few people or towns, either. In fact, a coordinated protest was organized just this weekend, happening in 142 different venues across 42 states, and is the first one to happen simultaneously across the U.S. Forbes reports that this makes community consent scarcer than the chips and other equipment and resources needed to build and run these sites. As Reuters notes, the organisers behind the protests have branded the "unaccountable" data center buildout as an "unacceptable infringement on our liberty."

Data centers have faced shortages of various kinds in the past few years — it began with GPU supply, then evolved into a memory chip bottleneck. Alongside that, there’s also the limited supply of electricity from the grid, as well as the related power infrastructure. But the one thing that many data center developers did not count on was the lack of public support.

This resistance isn’t limited to the streets, as bipartisan political moves have resulted in everything from delays in various projects to statewide bans. More than 69 jurisdictions have already imposed data center bans, with Seattle (home to the headquarters of AI tech giants Microsoft and Amazon) and the state of New York passing one-year moratoriums. Because of this, more than $130 billion worth of data centers have already been delayed in just the first quarter of 2026.

Developers have employed various techniques to get around these bans and opposition. This includes picking sites in rural areas with fewer people (thus less resistance), bringing their own electricity, or claiming that their data centers use less water than lawn care and gardening. But despite all their promises of jobs, investment, and tax revenue, the American public has grown wary of suffering from the consequences of having a data center as a neighbor. This is especially true after reports of increased utility rates, water quality issues, noise pollution problems, and more have widely circulated around the country.

Because of this, any data center project must take the community into account. It can no longer just rely on a friendly town council for approval, especially as the voting public has proven that they are willing to take steps to oust officials that they feel do not represent them. While many know that the U.S. needs data centers to compete in the AI race, they don’t want this to happen at the expense of their quality of life. And while investors can just keep on pouring money into purchasing chips and upgrading infrastructure, they cannot just buy off the community — instead, they need a solid plan that stands up to scrutiny and opposition and accounts for the months or even years it will take for permits to go through and get approved.

Intel just announced another round of layoffs more than a year after CEO Lip-Bu Tan warned of “tough decisions” required to get the company back on track. This decision has resulted in the reduction of its headcount by more than 35,000 since 2024, when ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed that its data center and foundry divisions have lost $1.6 billion. The latest announcement came months after the last job cuts and is still happening despite the company posting a strong first quarter this year. According to Oregon Live, its share price has more than tripled from a low of $23 per share to more than $96 today, with the data center group reporting sales of $5.1 billion for the first quarter. However, this good performance seems not to have affected the firm’s plan to streamline its operations.

“As part of our broader strategy to become a more focused and efficient company, (the data center group) is aligning its organization to ensure it has the right roles and skills in place to position the business for long-term success,” Intel told the publication in a statement. It also added, “We are committed to treating all impacted employees with respect and providing resources to support them through this transition.” Unfortunately, the company did not say how many positions will be cut and when it is happening — it only assured that the reduction-in-force won’t affect its business commitments and plans to launch new products.

While the AI infrastructure build-out was initially powered by GPUs and memory chips, advancements in agentic AI have greatly increased the demand for CPUs, putting Intel in a good position with its Xeon chips. Aside from that, the company is reporting customer interest, possibly including Apple, for its 18A and 14A nodes. It’s also planning to launch an AI GPU in the latter half of 2026 that will compete against Nvidia’s RTX Pro 5000 GPU.

This is a slow reversal of its misfortunes in the first half of the decade, but it seems that it’s not happening fast enough for its data center group employees who will be affected by the job cuts. It’s quite surprising that Intel plans to gut its Data Center group, which is one of its strongest performers and is in a good position to take advantage of the ongoing AI data center boom. But despite the high demand for AI data centers, it seems that the company still needs to cut its personnel count to streamline its operation.

The head of the SK Group, which owns SK hynix, said in a press briefing that memory semiconductor prices are “abnormally high,” and that the industry must take steps to increase supply and help lower prices. The Chosun Daily writes that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won delivered this statement during a press briefing at an industry forum, where he also noted that the group is looking at building a memory chip plant in the U.S. to increase production.

“Memory prices are currently at an abnormally high level. While AI companies can absorb increased costs through investments, PC and smartphone manufacturers have no choice but to pass rising semiconductor costs onto product prices,” Chey told the media. “Since most customers for these products are individuals, there are limits to how much prices can be raised. To prevent 'chipflation'—where rising chip prices drive up finished product costs—supply must be expanded.”

Aside from expanding supply and easing memory prices for consumer products, extremely high memory prices brought about by limited supply could negatively impact the big three companies. That’s because the high margins could lead to the entry of new players or give smaller manufacturers the opportunity to grow their presence and challenge the established firms. We’re already seeing this, as some Chinese brands have ditched them for domestically produced CXMT and YMTC chips. While this could be driven by Beijing, even major multinational brands like Corsair and Lenovo have started sourcing from these companies just to get chips. Even Apple is asking permission from Washington to buy memory chips from CXMT. Aside from that, he also cited Elon Musk’s interest in building his own fab as a potential threat to existing memory semiconductor companies.

This isn’t a problem at the moment as there is more than enough demand to go around for incumbent memory and storage chip manufacturers and new entrants. In fact, memory companies can use this as a defense against price-fixing lawsuits, with the massive AI demand and the higher margins it offers standing as a plausible reason why memory chip companies focused on HBM production and reduced DRAM output. But before the AI boom, the memory industry was actually suffering from one of the worst memory downturns to hit the industry for over a decade. So, if and when the memory shortage is over and the memory industry resumes its boom-and-bust cycle, more manufacturers jockeying to find customers in a tight market would make it that much harder for these companies to survive and thrive.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that the government is working to establish the “Australian Standards for A.I.,” which would stand as a national framework that AI companies must follow if they want to operate in the country. As backlash against the negative effects of data centers is making it harder for AI hyperscalers to build and expand infrastructure in the U.S. and Europe, the New York Times reports that many of these firms are now eyeing the Land Down Under for its vast lands and abundant renewable energy sources. But even before they start setting up shop in the country, Canberra wants to get ahead and ensure that these developments do not cause any problems for the general public.

“Every country on earth is grappling with these challenges right now. Australia will be the first country in the world to bring these issues into a single, national framework,” the prime minister said in his speech. One part of this policy will enforce a “legal obligation” for data centers to produce the same amount of power that they consume, ensuring that their presence does not put an unnecessary burden on the power grid that would result in increased utility prices for the average citizen. It also wants to ensure that these projects be as water efficient as possible, especially given that Australia is the driest populated continent on Earth, according to the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Center (IGRAC).

Aside from concern for data centers’ use of natural resources, the Australian government also wants to ensure that the intellectual property rights of its people are protected. Albanese said that Australian creators, including writers, musicians, artists, and news reporters, should “retain control of the price and value of their work” when used for AI training. “Anything less is theft. No country has got this right yet,” says the prime minister.

While some business industry groups expressed their support for the government’s goal, they were also a bit cautious, saying that overregulation could mean that Australia will miss out on the opportunities the AI data centers will bring for the company. University of New South Wales in Sydney professor Toby Walsh, who specializes in Artificial Intelligence, also told The Times that the PM is on the right track, as it addresses the concerns that most Australians have regarding AI and the infrastructure behind it. However, these are just planned policies, and the regulation behind them must still be worked out. “The devil will be in the details exactly what they do,” says Prof. Walsh.