If all data centres permitted in the United States through 2025 begin operating, their annual electricity use is estimated to rise to 358.8 terawatt hours (TWh) from 224.3 TWh. That is 50 percent higher than the estimate a year earlier.

Business Insider said on June 7 that its analysis of U.S. data centre permitting data showed the median power consumption for those facilities exceeded the annual electricity use of every U.S. state excluding Texas.

The surge in power demand is being driven by hyperscale data centres needed to expand artificial intelligence (AI). Most are estimated to consume at least 40 megawatts (MW). In 2025 alone, 176 new data centres were permitted in 34 U.S. states, the highest annual total since the first permit in 1976.

Project sizes are also growing. Amazon is pursuing a 14-building data centre complex in Ridgeland, Mississippi, and Microsoft (MS) is building 9 buildings in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. A facility QTS is building near Eagle Mountain, Utah, is estimated to use 1.9 TWh to 3 TWh a year at full operation. That is comparable to the average power use of 227,000 U.S. households.

The problem is that the expansion is adding to burdens on the power grid and local communities. Several analyses said investment costs for transmission and distribution networks and generation facilities to meet data centre demand could ultimately be passed on through higher electricity bills overall.

In the PJM Interconnection region, data centre demand was tallied as affecting a 76 percent rise in wholesale power costs in the first quarter of 2026 from a year earlier. Monitoring Analytics, PJM's independent market monitor, said existing and expected data centre loads mean customers are already bearing billions of dollars in additional costs.

Big Tech has responded. Amazon, Google, Meta and OpenAI pledged in late 2025 to shoulder fairly the power-grid investment costs needed to support future data centres. Microsoft has also said it is working with power companies on energy demand planning and grid investment so it can operate data centres without taking resources from local customers or raising electricity bills.

Local opposition is growing stronger. Residents in Sedgwick County, Kansas, said they worry data centres could burden electricity bills, noise and air pollution, and the agricultural base. Local farmer Caitlin Gruenbacher (케이틀린 그루엔바허) said data centres would undermine her way of life and that while they take away limited resources, nothing returns to the community.

Residents are amplifying opposition through social media and public hearings, and Sedgwick County leaders extended by 90 days in May the review period for new data centre applications.

Politicians are also responding. Nebraska is discussing a plan to require new data centres to secure their own power sources such as large natural gas turbines. The aim is to prevent electricity bill increases and have Big Tech directly bear the cost of grid upgrades needed to support data centres.

There is also a tax dispute. Some states and local governments have offered large tax breaks to attract data centres. Ohio reported that tax revenue fell by about $1.6 billion in 2025 due to data centre tax benefits, and the programme was recently suspended. Supporters, however, expect gains in AI competitiveness, construction jobs and local public finances. Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet plan to spend more than $600 billion in 2026, with most expected to go into expanding data centres.

Data centres have become core infrastructure underpinning the AI race, but costs and community burdens from rising power demand are also growing. As Big Tech continues large-scale investment, the dispute is expected to shift from how many more data centres to build to who will secure the required electricity, how it will be supplied and who will pay.