How Rising Utility Costs, AI, and ICE Are All Connected

Big Tech is spending hundreds of millions in political dollars.

We all know the cost of living is going up. Groceries, rent, health insurance, everything is more expensive now, including the cost of utilities. As tech companies race to corner the market on AI, they’re building more energy-hungry data centers, the demand for electricity is increasing, and utility costs are soaring.

The increases are happening just about everywhere. Since 2019, utility costs in California have gone up over 66%. In Ohio, almost 30%. In Michigan, over 22%. And so forth. A recent Bloomberg News analysis found that in the regions with new data centers, in the last five years there’s been as much as a 267% increase in electricity costs. Given that utility and tech companies are major political spenders with a long track record of influencing policy, it’s reasonable to assume that the rate hikes will keep coming, and everyday Americans will keep absorbing the costs of companies like Meta, Palantir, Google, and Microsoft executing their business plans.

This matters for the obvious cost-of-living reasons. Life is just too expensive for too many people across the country. The negative environmental consequences of data centers are also serious: People living near data centers are often exposed to polluted air and water, and some data centers use as much energy as small cities; Many data centers rely on fossil fuels, at a time when we should be lowering emissions to address the climate crisis. And, especially right now, this matters because of ICE’s violence.

In public conversations, affordability concerns, environmental threats, and ICE’s violence are often treated as separate issues. If you look just under the surface, though, the simultaneous expansion of both data centers and ICE’s operations are inextricably linked. Many of the same major tech companies that are using our electricity grid to develop new products are also contracting with Trump Administration agencies like ICE. So, it’s not a stretch to say that when we’re subsidizing their data centers by paying higher utility bills, we’re helping to maintain ICE’s surveillance apparatus and more.

Late last year, Palantir, the technology company that provides major parts of the technological infrastructure for ICE, teamed up with Nvidia, the AI chip company, and CenterPoint Energy, a Texas-based gas and utility company, to develop a new platform that aims to speed up the construction of data centers, which both Palantir and Nvidia need to keep selling their AI products. The goal of Chain Reaction, their new plan, is to “hyperscale data centers supporting AI workloads.” In other words, those companies are trying to build more data centers faster to run more AI.

There’s a straight line between the demand for those data centers and the Trump Administration’s recent actions. Both Palantir and Nvidia have received enormous contracts with the Trump Administration (and their executives are major Trump donors). Last year, the Trump Administration’s Department of Energy gave Nvidia a contract to develop supercomputers to help the U.S. maintain and develop its nuclear weapons arsenal. Palantir holds ICE’s biggest contract, $140 million, and the company has received $60 million for surveillance tools since Trump was inaugurated in 2025. Those surveillance tools are used to target immigrants for arrest and deportation. Palantir expects revenue between $7.18 billion and $7.2 billion this year.

Tech companies whose products many of us use regularly are also driving increased energy demands and rising utility costs, spending millions of dollars to buy political influence, and providing the backbone for the Trump Administration’s operations. Google for example has a partnership with Palantir. And according to the BBC, last year Google entered into an agreement with Lockheed Martin, a large military contractor, “to deploy Gemini AI models in unnamed products and services.” Microsoft and Amazon have major contracts to provide ICE with cloud services.

These same tech giants are also spending hundreds of millions of political dollars to install their preferred politicians who’ll let them keep operating with minimal oversight or regulation. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have made major donations to support current Republican officials, including $1 million from Google and Microsoft each for Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund. Palantir’s cofounder Peter Thiel has given Republicans collectively tens of millions of dollars over many years.

Meanwhile, utility companies are also profiting from the increased energy usage and costs, and they’re also major political spenders on both the state and federal level – exerting influence through both elections and lobbying spending. The electric utilities industry spent $27.6 million in the 2024 federal election cycle, following $30 million on federal elections in both 2016 and 2020. According to an analysis by End Citizens United, electric utilities have also spent over $100 million on federal lobbying every year since 2006. And the utility industry is notorious for its revolving door between government officials and industry lobbyists. A staggering 50 percent of electric utilities lobbyists previously worked in government positions. So, the utility industry is also making sure their business model wins.

With the midterm elections coming, tech companies are already deploying millions of dollars to elect their preferred candidates. Multiple PACs have the stated goal of electing “AI-friendly” lawmakers. According to Politico, in just one month this year, tech companies have poured $115 million into campaign committees in California alone. This comes in the wake of California passing a limited set of AI regulations. We can expect tech companies to spend more throughout this year on both state level and federal races.

So, as we try to make sense of what’s happening in our communities, what we see on the news, and what could happen in upcoming elections, it’s important to remember that many of our concerns aren’t as disparate as they may seem at first. It’s not a big coincidence that our bills are going up at the very same time that our federal government is failing to address the climate crisis at the very same time masked thugs are taking our neighbors off the street. There’s one underlying problem that has created the conditions for all those other problems: The ultrawealthy and their super PACs have corrupted our elections and megadonors are rigging the system so their companies can extract more profits from us.