In May of this year, a major poll delivered a number that surprised even seasoned political observers: seven in ten Americans said they opposed the construction of AI data centres in their communities, with nearly half describing that opposition as strong. The finding cut across party lines in a country where almost nothing does, uniting progressive activists in Virginia — where demonstrators marched in July 2026 — with rural conservatives in Texas who had assumed the AI boom would pass them by. The electricity bill is the sharpest edge of the backlash. Data centres draw industrial quantities of power, and when local grids strain to keep up, residential customers tend to absorb the difference.

Roughly one in five poll respondents cited financial consequences — higher utility costs in particular — as a primary reason for their opposition. New York responded by becoming the first US state to enact a temporary moratorium on new data centre construction last month. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have since proposed extending that pause to the entire country. Even Greg Abbott, Texas's far-right governor, called for restrictions on data centre development across rural parts of his state — a coalition that would have seemed improbable eighteen months ago.

The Trump administration finds itself caught between two of its own promises: making the United States the world leader in artificial intelligence, and reducing household energy costs. Its answer, the "Ratepayer Protection Pledge", is a voluntary agreement signed by nearly 200 companies, utilities and state governments, under which AI firms and data centre developers commit to covering their own electricity and infrastructure costs rather than passing them to consumers.