In a dramatic push to keep America’s lights on and its AI boom humming, the Trump administration is urging the nation’s largest electricity grid operator to hold a special auction that would require Big Tech companies to fund at least $15 billion in new power plants.
Big Tech would fund $15 billion in new power plants through 15-year contracts to support surging data center demand.
The plan targets PJM Interconnection, which manages electricity for 67 million customers across 13 states and Washington, D.C. The proposed auction would lock tech giants into 15-year contracts to build new generation capacity. Think of it as Big Tech writing a massive check to guarantee their data centers have enough juice to run all those ChatGPT queries and AI models without leaving everyone else in the dark.
The urgency stems from a real problem. PJM recently fell short by 6 gigawatts in meeting its 2027 reliability requirements. That’s roughly the output of six large nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, data center demand is expected to triple over the next decade, particularly in Northern Virginia‘s data center hotspot. Electricity rates already jumped 10 to 15 percent in 2025, and nobody wants their power bill climbing higher because tech companies need more electricity. PJM is expecting peak demand to jump 17 percent by 2030 from current-year highs.
Energy Secretary Wright and Interior Secretary Burgum are leading the charge, backed by governors from all 13 PJM states. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro even threatened to pull his state from PJM if changes don’t happen. The bipartisan support shows how seriously states take this issue. Central banks regularly adjust policy interest rates to influence economic activity, which can affect borrowing costs for utilities and developers, and such rate moves are set by committees like the Federal Open Market Committee.
The proposed auction differs from PJM’s standard 12-month process. Tech companies would bid on contracts with staggered plant start-up times under a “take or pay” structure, meaning they’d pay whether they use the power or not. This arrangement gives developers the financial certainty needed to build massive new plants. Democratic senators including Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Richard Blumenthal have expressed alarm over utility companies passing infrastructure costs to consumers amid tech expansion.
PJM is reviewing the proposal but wasn’t invited to the White House announcement. The grid operator released its own plan in January 2026 and emphasizes that any changes require months of planning. The administration wants the special auction completed by September 2026, with an expedited interconnection process rolling out in August. Whether this ambitious timeline holds remains to be seen.
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