民主党大胜，科技巨头面临更大电网成本压力Tech Giants Face More Grid Cost Pressure on Democratic Sweep

Tech giants chasing the infinite promise of AI are finding themselves increasingly on the hook for something far earthier — the electrical grid. A Democratic sweep will only intensify that.

Driven by anger over rising consumer bills, voters backed Democrats from Ohio to Texas who pledged to shield households from data centers’ insatiable electricity demands. The political shift will likely give impetus to financial requirements on tech firms like Oracle Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. which are already being called on to backstop costs of the power infrastructure.

Since at least last year, data center operator Applied Digital Corp. has asked major tenants like Oracle and Meta Platforms Inc. to provide billions of dollars in guarantees to secure power before finalizing leases, a person familiar with the matter said. Meanwhile, an Indiana utility has devised a novel structure to protect households from the rising costs of its biggest tech customers’ AI buildout.

Historically, utilities funded the grid infrastructure and secured returns on that spending through approved rate hikes. Now, power companies want to ensure the biggest electricity users can carry the costs if a data center project falls apart.

“The 2026 midterm elections demonstrate that electricity has become a force in our new politics,” said Charles Hua, founder of advocacy group PowerLines. “State policymakers will feel significant pressure to push for utility reforms that ensure consumers are protected.”These financial obligations are also reshaping who gets data center leases. Applied Digital has capped how much capacity it will lease to junk-rated neocloud firms like CoreWeave Inc. to avoid the additional utility requirements tied to speculative-grade tenants.

“Applied Digital prefers to do business with investment-grade tenants, with a preferred mix of 70% investment-grade to 30% non investment-grade,” Chief Executive Officer Wes Cummins said in a statement.

Representatives for Meta didn’t have a comment. A representative for Oracle declined to comment. A representative for CoreWeave said the firm and Applied Digital have a strong partnership and continue seeking to expand it.

When a tech giant builds a data center, the utility can extract a parent guarantee straight from them to make sure that the customer is on the hook for substations and gas plants powering their loads, even if the project falls through. When an independent developer contracts with the utility, they may obtain guarantees from tech giant tenants because the liabilities are too big for the developer’s balance sheet.

These obligations come amid anxiety about the debt-fueled AI expansion, which has widened bond spreads and fueled periodic market routs — compounded recently by Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang’s abrupt resignation. Hyperscalers are expected to issue $300 billion to $320 billion of debt this year alone, according to Barclays Plc.

“If all the components of an AI project — whether it’s chips or data center construction or power or the materials going into the data center — go up in pricing, we could see some impact on the ratings,” said Raj Joshi, senior vice president at Moody’s Ratings.

Both Republicans and Democrats have sought guardrails on data center growth, and the Democrat sweep will give that fresh momentum. Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa pledged during her campaign to implement a statewide data center moratorium.

Incoming Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown vowed to take a tougher stance on the facilities, reminding voters in his acceptance speech that he doesn’t “work for” data centers or utilities.

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Richard Blumenthal have demanded answers from Amazon, CoreWeave and others about how they pay for their energy needs.

Tech giants have little choice but to cough up. Applied Digital is also asking Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which provide chips for AI computing, for guarantees, the person familiar said. Applied seeks guarantees on a case-by-case basis, usually requiring them to backstop the cost of utility connections.

“With most new sites, you have to build the power and transmission lines yourself,” said Applied Digital President Jason Zhang. “You can no longer just plug into an existing setup.”Representatives for Nvidia and AMD didn’t have a comment.

Utilities are finding ways to shield consumers. In 2024, Amazon requested a volume of electricity that exceeded Northern Indiana Public Service Company’s entire existing system load — and wanted it fast. Power executives huddled in a conference room trying to make the math work.

Their solution was to create a separate entity, called NiSource Generation Company, to house the power generation assets for Amazon and other tech giants.

The unit — dubbed GenCo — operates like a dedicated utility for Nipsco’s largest customers. They pay for the infrastructure and any new power plants needed to meet their loads. The arrangement is designed to exclude the costs associated with their needs from future regulatory proceedings involving consumer rates.

“We did not want customers to wear the liability,” said Michael Luhrs, an executive vice president at Nipsco’s parent company NiSource. “So we asked: What if we did it another way?”Amazon had a lot of questions about the structure, but came around.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google struck another agreement centered around the GenCo framework.

The payoff was speed: This structure reduced the length of regulatory reviews before the firms’ data centers plugged into the grid. Google started getting power in recent months, while Amazon is slated to receive power next year. Microsoft Corp. just inked a big deal with Nipsco too and is expected to get electricity in 2028.

Nipsco has signed agreements for five gigawatts of capacity tied to GenCo and sees the potential for another 4 gigawatts — a total capable of powering 6.5 million households. Some revenue from the deals flows to Nipsco’s regular customers as bill credits, and the utility projects $1.75 billion in cost savings.

For added security, Nipsco requires parent guarantees and other protections from large tech customers. The power issue has proven contentious.

Oracle had already agreed to cover the electricity service and power-generation resources at its $15 billion Lighthouse site in Wisconsin — developed with Vantage Data Centers and OpenAI. But then the state utility regulator modified the utility’s tariff criteria for large electricity customers.

In May, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin approved new rates proposed by Wisconsin Electric, but raised the minimum credit rating required for large customers to bypass requirements to post financial security. Under the updated rules, any company rated below an A- from S&P Global Ratings or an A3 from Moody’s would have to post such collateral.

Because Oracle’s rating fell short of that threshold, it faced a massive financial burden. In June, the company filed a lawsuit against the regulator.

“The Commission’s decision imposes one of the most stringent — if not the most stringent — credit support requirements I have seen,” Julia Robin, who is head of infrastructure planning at Oracle according to her LinkedIn profile, said in a separate affidavit. Oracle would have to post a letter of credit exceeding $7 billion, or more than $100 million annually, she added.

In June, lawmakers had also introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act to shield consumers from data center electricity costs. In August, Oracle dropped the lawsuit.

Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said the firm will continue to work with power regulators and the community. He added the “suit had no bearing on our unwavering commitment to pay for our own power needs.”