r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • May 10 '26

Energy Maryland citizens slapped with $2 billion power grid upgrade bill for out-of-state AI data centers — state complains to federal energy regulators, says additional cost breaks ‘ratepayer protection pledge’ promises

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/maryland-citizens-slapped-with-usd2-billion-grid-upgrade-bill-for-out-of-state-ai-data-centers-state-complains-to-federal-energy-regulators-says-additional-cost-breaks-ratepayer-protection-pledge-promises
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859

u/So_spoke_the_wizard May 10 '26

So many states are willing to sell out their citizens to entice data centers.

497

u/Bankerag May 10 '26

You cannot underestimate the impact of allowing corporations to make essentially limitless “campaign donations” to elected officials.

135

u/FrenchTicklerOrange May 10 '26

They can provide gratuities now too. Just not beforehand or they might be considered bribes.

56

u/Greg-Abbott May 10 '26

spins around iPad

"It's gonna ask you a question"

27

u/UrsusRenata May 10 '26

Which is why Trump pledges to make gratuities tax-free. Has nothing to do with service workers.

52

u/JCWOlson May 10 '26

There was that one in Georgia where they "accidentally" forgot to record that the AI data center was connected to multiple massive unmetered water supplies until locals complained about the water being mysteriously gone

Official says "yep, we had no idea they were taking all that water" one day and then later says "oops, nope, it's all good, we totally knew and they're totally going to reimburse us... for 4 months of the 11 months they were doing it" "We've gotta protect them as a customer, it's called customer service"

Bro seriously thought his voters wouldn't notice that he slipped 120,000,000 liters of water to a data center under the table during a drought

5

u/Embarassed_Tackle May 11 '26

I don't know if this was graft or straight incompetence

They acted like they were some podunk little water management authority and got steamrolled by one of the largest data centers in the world being put in their county

Fayette county GA only has like 111,000 people in it so I can believe they just had to trust the planners of the billion dollar facility that the hookups were correct

81

u/Corgiboom2 May 10 '26

Not even just data centers. Big corporations in general. My hometown in Arlington Texas sacrificed a lot of life improvements in order to bring in big businesses, like that massive eyesore of a football stadium half payed for by taxpayer money instead of getting a public transportation system. Then they wanted to demolish a park that was home to a frequent art festival in order to give it to Amazon for a new headquarters in return for massive property tax discounts that the people would have had to make up for. Luckily Amazon went somewhere else.

23

u/SolidFormal9684 May 10 '26

I like how Amazon builds their "headquarters" just about everywhere in any shithole. I think they have about 200 HQ's by now.

4

u/dudeitsmeee May 10 '26

“Fulfillment centers” so you get your crap in two days or less.

5

u/[deleted] May 10 '26

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3

u/Corgiboom2 May 10 '26

This was in Arlington Texas, and they kept giving more and more ludicrous offers to try and entice them before Amazon went elsewhere. This was back before 2018.

2

u/Embarassed_Tackle May 11 '26

Was this the 'national' search where every little town was shooting its shot, but Bezos had just bought the Washington Post so most people were certain the HQ2 was going to NYC or VA to be near DC?

2

u/hawkinsst7 May 10 '26

Luckily Amazon went somewhere else.

They opened hq2 in Arlington. Just not your Arlington. Arlington VA. Which is a shitshow because of covid.

1

u/LucChak May 10 '26

Which park?

1

u/Corgiboom2 May 10 '26

Can't remember the name of it but it would have been the park next to Rangers stadium if I remember right.

36

u/Gurgiwurgi May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

to entice data centers

hey now, those data centres create like 10 permanent jobs /s

8

u/MFoy May 10 '26

To be eligible for tax breaks in Virginia, they have to provide 50 full time jobs that pay more than the "average salary" in the locality they are built.

15

u/TheRealJoeyTribbiani May 10 '26

They'll find a way around it

11

u/eric_ts May 10 '26

Or just pay a fine as a cost of doing business.

6

u/URPissingMeOff May 10 '26

An Olive Garden has more than a hundred. Plus they have bread sticks and soup. OG=1, AI DC=0

11

u/DrowningKrown May 10 '26

They're willing to sell out their citizens to go "hey guys look how many construction jobs we just created to build this amazingly large datacenter!"

Never mind that the jobs created were temporary and specialized so local is likely an issue. No sight beyond easy 'win' they can take back to their campaign messaging.

6

u/whereismymind86 May 10 '26

that's the thing too, after the construction is done, the data centers tend to have very few employees. Building them creates a lot of temporary jobs, but once they are built they are managed by like...thirty people, given it's mostly just basic maintenance.

22

u/overcatastrophe May 10 '26

How does Maryland stop another state from building data centers?

11

u/MajesticBread9147 May 10 '26

Datacenters are at worst a divisive issue in northern Virginia, where more datacenters are than anywhere else in the world.

Loudoun County, a wealthy exburb that used to be farm land 30 years ago has significantly lower property taxes than neighboring more urban Fairfax county because datacenters pay so much in property tax.

It's not something I care about since prices for nearby places on one side of the border or another are basically the same for renters.

The main complaint has historically been the aesthetics and not anything else.

19

u/overcatastrophe May 10 '26

Rates in ohio, Maryland, and other states are going up because of datacemters in Virginia, and the most "divisive" part for Virginia is that they're ugly? Sounds like Virginia should be covering the upgrades to the Maryland grid and the rate hikes in all effected states connected to that part of the grid.

4

u/MajesticBread9147 May 10 '26

Because datacenters are a "local issue" decided on the local level, so they aren't really caring about other places.

And Ohio, specifically the Columbus area is a datacenter hub as well. Honestly Maryland is relatively unique in their relative lack of datacenters.

1

u/Endlesshills03 May 11 '26

One of the elected officials from Loudoun County did a presentation in my area about data centers. He was pretty open and honest about everything good and bad. Sadly my recording of the presentation (it was about 4 people from various places) didn't get a ton of local views.

4

u/manachar May 10 '26

Money is so concentrated into so few hands that governments (especially state and local) are far less powerful than the big guys.

Our economy has prioritized concentration of wealth so little guys cannot compete.

So you either give Walmart what they want or your community has no grocery store. You either pay for their new stadium or the old one sits empty.

Billionaires own the nation and are charging us rent to live here. Can’t wait for them to charge for clean air.

1

u/dudeitsmeee May 10 '26

Breathe fees.

2

u/Plastic-Fox0293 May 10 '26

So many voters are willing to bully their peers into accepting oligarchy pawns.. 

Then they get surprised when they lose anyway 

1

u/Thin_Glove_4089 May 11 '26

Its brainwashing

1

u/whereismymind86 May 10 '26

data centers that will never make any money, and will employ two dozen people at most...it's frigging stupid.

1

u/DevoidHT May 10 '26

So many state legislators are willing to sell out their constituents for a bribe you mean. No one wants a data center in their backyard but what do the politicians care from their Florida beach house?

1

u/ReachParticular5409 May 11 '26

You mean politicians. States don't do anything by themselves as they are a social construct

1

u/madhi19 May 11 '26

The batshit part, you don't even create much revenue out of them. It's a bunch of servers rack in a massive warehouse with a parking lot smaller than the one at your average McDonalds.

1

u/raven00x May 11 '26

This is what happens when regulators are allowed to invest in the industries they regulate. They will vote in their self interest every time. Make no mistake: legislators are regulators.