Senate review of data centers: tech giants did not disclose permanent job numbers or agree to pay for new power infrastructure
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
Pressure on data centers is growing: companies are asked for openness and to pay for grid connection, which makes the infrastructure that SI growth rests on more expensive.
According to TIME, an investigation by Senator Elizabeth Warren together with Chris Van Hollen and Richard Blumenthal covered Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Digital Realty and Equinix. The companies stressed construction jobs but did not give full data on permanent ones; the ratio, per TIME, is about one permanent employee per megawatt. All four largest companies sought nondisclosure agreements; Microsoft and Amazon committed to dropping them in dealings with local governments, Google and Meta did not. None of the seven companies agreed to pay for new power infrastructure; Meta's Louisiana project could raise nearby customers' bills by $8–13 a month. Congress, per TIME, will consider the bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, which would require large electricity consumers to pay for incremental infrastructure costs.
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