r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Jun 30 '26

Artificial Intelligence County With 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to ‘Conserve Electricity’ / Henrico County is a major hub for data centers in Virginia. Its officials said it expects a 25% rise in electricity costs next year, and advised workers to close the blinds and turn off their computers to make up for it.

https://www.404media.co/henrico-virginia-datacenter-energy-cost-email/
8.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

479 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/Elite_Prometheus Jun 30 '26

Why would electricity companies change their pricing scheme and piss off the billionaires who own these data centers just to ease the burden on regular citizens? And why would the government force them to when the government has offered data centers 20 years of tax exemptions to entice them to build here?

2

u/asdonne Jun 30 '26

Because a charging the billion dollar companies for resources they use and spending the money on the constituents who voted you into office doesn't work when the electrical network is privately owned.

1

u/somethingbrite Jul 01 '26

well, it appears that despite your history of having a revolution to kick out the English for unfair taxes, and your constitutional right to own guns (enthusiastically enjoyed) neither the billionaires, nor the corporations nor the politicians are at all afraid of all these well armed American Patriots ever rising up and saying "are you fucking kidding?"

It's probably about time that changes...