US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters • Hacker News Board

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#121

Post by Arubis » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

Propelloni wrote: post #97

throwaw12 wrote: post #88

> The agreement is meant to help mitigate concerns that big tech’s datacenters are driving up US electricity costs for homes and small businesses Exactly opposite will happen. Reason is, when Big Tech is paying huge amounts of money to contractors to build those power generation facilities and service companies to service it, they will abandon servicing other facilities (remember how Micron dropped consumer RAMs last…

LOL, they just introduced QoS into the electricity grid.

That concept was effectively already available. Hospitals tend to have multiple grid hookups before falling back on local generation.

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#122

Post by FpUser » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

ilovechaz wrote: post #115

dathinab wrote: post #96

which means nothing because no one believes there are legal consequences if they don't and there are a lot of ways to doge it even if there where a reliable government in place like especially if they do what they have been doing recently (run their own generator, build their own power planes) a lot of this cost is implicit and as such very dogeable. E.g. higher cost for gas power planes for other due to major increa…

[flagged]

>"commies"

Who are those may I ask?

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#123

Post by Xunjin » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

beloch wrote: post #71

deadbolt wrote: post #14

We're all gonna end up paying for this and everyone involved knows it.

Public investment yields private dividends.

“Socialize the losses, privatize the profits”.

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#124

Post by chasd00 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:56 PM UTC

blitzar wrote: post #119

I too pledge to bear costs of energy I use. I was unaware it was optional.

hah yeah that's pretty funny. "you can count on us to pay our electricity bill!" - tech companies.

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#125

Post by malka1986 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #122

ilovechaz wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>"commies" Who are those may I ask?

The famous communists of hacker news. sigh.

If you are in the US, and are not fascist, I urge you to leave. You are in an equivalent of 1933 germany. It is gonna be dangerous to not bend for the great leader.

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#126

Post by Xunjin » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:01 PM UTC

NoLinkToMe wrote: post #92

I've seen Musk note in an interview that at year-end the bottleneck will not be CPU/RAM etc, but electricity. And new powerplants are backlogged for years. That's why he wants to go into space (10x solar potential because you don't have a day/night cycle, no clouds, no dust/rain, no temperature loss, no orientation issues, and no atmosphere reducing solar). To me it seems ridiculous, for one because sending 150kg to…

The point of your whole argument is that “financial experts” are always rational and are not affected by bubbles, it took months from energy experts talking with media/investors to the Big Tech would start talking about “energy crisis”.

In fact, Nadella publicly stated that he has a large amount of hardware in inventory that has already been purchased but cannot be utilized due to insufficient energy.

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#127

Post by soared » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:06 PM UTC

miyoji wrote: post #36

You can read the actual pledge at [0]. The executive order regarding it is at [1]. There's some speculation in the comments about what is or isn't in the pledge. I recommend reading it yourself. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/03/ratepayer-protec... [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/rate...

This sounds really cool and all governmenty

> IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fiftieth.

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#128

Post by ilovechaz » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

malka1986 wrote: post #125

FpUser wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"commies" Who are those may I ask?

The famous communists of hacker news. sigh. If you are in the US, and are not fascist, I urge you to leave. You are in an equivalent of 1933 germany. It is gonna be dangerous to not bend for the great leader.

[flagged]

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#129

Post by alphawhisky » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #110

dathinab wrote: post #96

which means nothing because no one believes there are legal consequences if they don't and there are a lot of ways to doge it even if there where a reliable government in place like especially if they do what they have been doing recently (run their own generator, build their own power planes) a lot of this cost is implicit and as such very dogeable. E.g. higher cost for gas power planes for other due to major increa…

>like especially if they do what they have been doing recently (run their own generator, build their own power planes) a lot of this cost is implicit and as such very dodgeable. E.g. higher cost for gas power planes for other due to major increase of demand, higher medical cost due to more air pollution, higher fuel prices, etc. etc. (not even speaking about anything climate change). And it's not just data centers, i…

I promise you, the City Engineer is aware of the bullshit. You catch a whiff, but they live in the stink. It's been clear for a while that there's conflicting interests and the only real way to fix it is to change incentives. However, if you're insinuating that the Clean Water Act is made by "slimy politicians and big picture ignoring environmentalists" then you're wrong. That's about the best common sense environmental reform in the last 100 years aside from removing lead from gas.

Re: US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

#130

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

ilovechaz wrote: post #128

malka1986 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The famous communists of hacker news. sigh. If you are in the US, and are not fascist, I urge you to leave. You are in an equivalent of 1933 germany. It is gonna be dangerous to not bend for the great leader.

[flagged]

[deleted]