Microsoft vows to cover full power costs for energy-hungry AI data centers
On Tuesday Microsoft announced a new initiative called "Community-First AI Infrastructure" that commits the company to paying full electricity costs for its data centers and refusing to seek local property tax reductions.
As demand for generative AI services has increased over the past year, Big Tech companies have been racing to spin up massive new data centers for serving chatbots and image generators that can have profound economic effects on the surrounding areas in which they are located. Among other concerns, communities across the country have grown concerned that data centers are driving up residential electricity rates through heavy power consumption and by straining water supplies due to server cooling needs.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that global data center electricity demand will more than double by 2030, reaching around 945 TWh, with the United States responsible for nearly half of total electricity demand growth over that period. This growth is happening while much of the country's electricity transmission infrastructure is more than 40 years old and under strain.