AI’s power grab has to face affordability politics

EVEN AS THE labour and housing markets slow, the “three As” of the Trump economy have kept things chugging along in 2025: artificial intelligence, asset prices, and the affluent.Last week’s elections showed voters have a fourth “A” in mind that threatens the current dynamic: affordability.

- CONOR SEN

In statewide elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and Georgia, rising power bills were front and centre in messaging from the winning candidates. Mikie Sherrill, who won New Jersey’s gubernatorial election by a larger-than-expected margin, said she planned to freeze utility bills in her first year and declare a state of emergency on utility costs. Virginia’s Governor-elect, Abigail Spanberger, warned that the state with the world’s largest concentration of data centres is heading toward an energy crisis. And in Georgia, two Democrats will take their seats on the body overseeing power costs for the first time in two decades.

Electricity inflation becoming a potent political message is a risk for hyperscalers like Meta Platforms and Alphabet, which are scrambling to lock down power supply for the data centres crucial to training and deploying their AI offerings. The problem for households is that this tsunami of demand is driving up electricity bills. Any roadblock that slows the AI buildout would have consequences not just for Big Tech, but also for a market leveraged to the promises and investments flowing from Silicon Valley, and for an economy kept humming by those who’ve benefitted from the boom.