Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have banded together to fight an Ohio utility that wants them to pay for upgrades to the electric grid that will be necessary to support the Big Tech firms’ plans to install energy-intensive data centers to power artificial intelligence technology.
American Electric Power Ohio, which serves cities such as Columbus as well as rural and suburban areas of the Buckeye State, told the state’s Public Utility Commission last month that it needs the tech companies to pay up in order to prevent the utility from passing on the rising costs to consumers.
But the Big Tech firms have balked, calling the planned tariff “unfair” and “discriminatory,” according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
In May, AEP Ohio, which often charges customers a monthly payment that represents a percentage of the maximum amount of electricity they expect to use, asked the tech companies to commit to a 10-year fee structure that would compel them to pay 90% of the projected load.
The companies, who initially agreed to pay 60% of the projected amount, would be on the hook for the larger payment even if they don’t end up using that amount of power, according to the report.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 30.
An AEP Ohio spokesperson told The Washington Post that the utility “is hopeful that a resolution is reached that keeps economic development moving forward in our service territory.”
The Post has sought comment from Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.
Artificial intelligence has advanced rapidly as evidenced by the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT as well as competing bots from other tech giants.
But the technology requires copious amounts of electricity sourced from fossil fuels to power the servers and chips which handle intensive AI tasks and store voluminous amounts of data.
Data centers also require large numbers of fans that must operate constantly to cool the servers so that they don’t overheat.
The energy output is upending tech firms’ stated climate goals.
In central Ohio, where dozens of data centers currently operate, the energy load used by these facilities increased from 100 megawatts in 2020 to 600 megawatts this year, according to AEP Ohio.
The utility predicts that by 2030, the amount will reach 5,000 megawatts given the pending requests from dozens of data centers to obtain permits.
There are nearly 3,000 data centers in the US — most of them run by obscure companies that rent them out to tech giants.
But AI evangelists such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates say that alternative sources of energy are needed to power the new technology.
Gates and Altman are investing in startups that are looking to advance fusion, the process of combining light atomic nuclei at extremely high temperatures and pressures so that it releases massive amounts of energy.
Until now, all nuclear power has come from nuclear fission reactors in which atoms are split — a process that produces both energy and radioactive waste.
Fusion doesn’t produce the radioactive waste of nuclear fission.
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