Anthropic says it will cover the bill for electricity rate increases associated with its data centers.
“We will cover 100% of the cost of the electrical grid upgrades required to interconnect our data centers,” Anthropic said in a blog post published Wednesday, adding that it would absorb costs that could be passed on to American households.
Anthropic said it will invest in “grid optimization tools” aimed at securing additional power to avoid power price spikes, reducing strain and keeping prices low.
“The country urgently needs to build new data centers to remain competitive in AI and national security,” Antropic said. “But AI companies should not leave that burden to U.S. ratepayers.”
Anthropic’s pledge comes months after the company announced it would invest $50 billion in U.S. AI infrastructure, starting with data centers in Texas and New York.
Big tech companies are pouring billions into AI infrastructure as they rush to expand data center capacity, an expansion that has come under scrutiny over soaring electricity costs.
Meta announced in November that it would invest $600 billion in the U.S. “to support the expansion of AI technology, infrastructure and workforce.” In August, Apple announced an additional $100 billion in U.S. infrastructure spending, bringing the total investment to $600 billion.
On the other hand, utility bills are soaring. Last year, electric and gas companies asked state regulators for $31 billion in rate increases, more than double the $15 billion they requested the year before, according to a study released last month by Powerlines, a nonprofit that advocates for utility customers. Many power companies cite power demand from data centers as a major factor in rate increases.
President Donald Trump has called on Big Tech to prevent data centers from raising electricity prices.
“I don’t want Americans to pay higher electricity bills because of data centers,” President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social last month.
The president said “the big tech companies that build them” “have to pay their own costs.”
Microsoft introduced a similar measure last month, saying it would pay utility bills high enough to cover the cost of power usage in its data centers and reduce the impact of data center expansion on local residents.
