The AI boom's hidden electricity bill — and why you're paying it

https://fortune.com/2026/07/24/why-youre-paying-for-data-center-electricity-power/

141 points · 8 comments · view on lemmy.world

8 Comments

cheese_greater@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 19d (1 reply)

Whaddya know, "they" love socialism after all. Socialism for them, Capitalism for thee

theredknight@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 19d

The technical term for this is neoliberalism

lemmyng@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 19d (1 reply)

"Hidden" my ass. Dominion Energy just sent me an email saying my average bill was going to INCREASE by $8 per month due to The Economy™, but clearly that's bullshit.

dan1101@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 19d

Mine has already doubled from 2 years ago, with the same amount of usage.

probable_possum@leminal.space · 10 pts · 19d

hidden electricity bill

Hidden? Whoa.

Soon someone discovers the amount of processing power and RAM needed to make or run these models. That's going to be a surprise.

E: I'm ranting because of the headline. The fact itself can't be stated too often. Hopefully some of those investors start to question if AI company shares are a good investment.

eicker@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 19d

AI companies keep promising productivity gains, but one of the first guaranteed outcomes is that everyone else helps pay the electricity bill. If the grid is upgraded for a few hyperscalers while the costs are spread across millions of customers, that’s not a free market. It’s a subsidy with extra steps.

YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 19d

For this story, Fortune’s journalists used generative AI as a research tool.

tomkatt@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 18d

Thankfully I’m not paying it. Even before the AI boom I saw the overall upward trend in power costs. I went solar with battery backup when I had my house built and I bought enough to be at or above 100% offset with net metering. The only thing I pay is the grid-tie connection fee each month, and I get a small check from the power company each year for any overage I generate.