Amazon, six others plan to sign the Rate Payer Protection Pledge with Donald Trump

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI will go to the White House on March 4 to meet President Donald Trump and sign a Rate Payer Protection Pledge, Fox News reported.

The pledge says new AI data centers must come with new power that the companies provide, so taxpayers do not take on added energy costs.

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said on Wednesday that “Major Tech companies will join President Trump at the White House next week to formally sign the Rate Payer Protection Pledge that he announced during his historic State of the Union address.”

Rogers said the firms will “build, bring, or buy their own power supply for new AI data centers,” and she said Americans’ electricity bills “will not increase as demand grows.”

Tech leaders sign the power pledge

Amazon will be joined by Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI, Fox News Digital said. Trump is leading the effort with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The event follows Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday. “Tonight, I’m pleased to announce that I have negotiated the new rate payer protection pledge,” Trump said. He added, “You know what that is? We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs.”

Trump pointed to limits in the U.S. grid. “We have an old grid,” he said. “It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed.” He said the companies can “build their own plant” and “produce their own electricity,” and he said the plan is meant to keep household power prices from rising as demand jumps.

The Trump administration has pushed AI growth to keep the U.S. as a tech leader and to avoid losing ground to China, and that push has been amplified since January 2025. Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania are among the states seeing bigger data center campuses and faster AI growth, with Amazon and other hyperscalers expanding footprints.

Markets tighten as megawatts get scarce

The overall vacancy rate in primary data center markets fell to a record-low 1.4% at year-end. Scarce inventory has pushed more preleasing and off-market activity, according to data from CBRE.

Primary market supply rose 36% year over year to 9,432 megawatts (MW), topping the 34% increase in 2024. Primary markets posted record net absorption of 2,497.6 MW in 2025 versus 1,809.5 MW in 2024.

Northern Virginia led net absorption in 2025 with 1,102.0 MW, while Dallas absorbed 470.8 MW, up by 424.0 MW year over year, as users, including Amazon, kept locking in capacity.

The average monthly asking rate for a 250-to-500-kilowatt (kW) requirement rose 6.5% year over year to $195.94 per kW per month, the fourth straight annual increase.

New capacity under construction in primary markets declined for the first time since 2020, with 5,994.4 MW under construction at the end of 2025 versus 6,350.1 MW in 2024, with delays tied to permitting, zoning, and power procurement hurdles.

Investors fund inference builds and AI racks

In primary wholesale colocation markets, the average asking rate for a 250-to-500-kilowatt requirement rose 6.5% year over year to a record $195.94 per kilowatt per month, with slower growth in H2 after three years of double-digit gains.

Pricing for 3-to-10-megawatt (MW) requirements jumped 12.5% year over year as competition intensified for large contiguous space with scalable power and connectivity, including space pursued by Amazon.

In Silicon Valley, volume-based pricing discounts for large tenants were significantly reduced or eliminated amid strong demand. The surge in high-density AI and GPU workloads lifted demand for advanced infrastructure, and operators with AI-optimized sites, including liquid cooling and high-power-density racks, captured rent premiums over conventional colocation space.

Data center investment activity was driven by sustained M&A and structured financing for AI-factory mega-campuses in tertiary markets.

Investment volume is expected to increase substantially in 2026, fueled by large-scale development completions, with demand for construction financing, joint-venture equity, and forward commitments.

Despite an uptick in year-end transaction activity, annual investment volume for operational data centers fell by nearly 50% year over year to about $3 billion, as supply chain, power delivery, and entitlement challenges extended timelines, and record demand with new supply barriers strengthened market fundamentals in H2 2025.

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