There is no measurable correlation between increasing electricity demand due to the rapidly increasing construction of new artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in multiple states and the rising costs in some regions of the United States of consumer energy, a new deep-dive analysis by the Institute for Energy Research (IER) finds.

“There is no statistically significant correlation between the number of data centers in a state and its current electricity prices. In fact, prices in the top ten data center states are virtually identical to the average across other states. Furthermore, there is no statistically significant relationship between data center concentration and faster increases in electricity rates,” the IER study found.

The research also found that states with the fastest economic growth experienced lower electric power rate hikes on average than did states with slower development: “Across all 50 states, states where electricity sales grew faster from 2015 to 2025 paid less, not more, for electricity. States where sales declined paid dramatically more.”

High-growth states averaged a 20% price increase between 2015 and 2025, and 15.9% for the period 2021 to 2025. Low-growth states experienced average increases of 39.4% and 28.5%, respectively, for the two periods, according to IER.

The IER undertook the study in response to growing concerns expressed in the mainstream media and among elected officials at the national and state levels.

“The massive growth in AI-electricity demand at data centers has sparked growing concern about rising electricity demand and prices. Commentators increasingly argue that the rapid expansion of data-center infrastructure is pushing up electricity prices and imposing hidden costs on households. It is an intuitive narrative as data centers consume large amounts of electricity, demand is rising quickly, and prices in some regions have increased much faster than inflation in recent years,” the study authors observe.

“As a result, some politicians and activist groups have rallied around the idea that data centers are driving up electricity prices. Some are even calling for a moratorium on new data centers. But does the data support this intuition? The answer is no. Although data center growth is helping to drive demand higher, it does not explain why electricity prices have risen significantly in some parts of the country,” they report.

Data provided by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) and a 2024 report for the federal government prepared by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) shows U.S. data centers in 2018 consumed 76 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2018 and roughly 176 TWh by 2023. That is a 131% increase in five years during a period of intense development of new AI-related facilities that need electrical power. The IER study cited as an example Meta’s metered data-center consumption, which rose from 6.97 TWh in 2020 to 18.06 TWh in 2024 with major campuses in Oregon, Iowa, and Nebraska more than doubling. The Meta surge represented a 159% increase in electric power consumption.

But such explosive demand for electrical power does not correlate with either current consumer prices in those states with the fastest-growing data center industries or in the rate of increase in those same states.

“States with many data centers don’t have higher or lower electricity prices than states with few data centers. In fact, the top 10 data center states (Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Ohio, etc.) averaged 14.46¢/kWh in 2025, virtually identical to the 14.39¢/kWh average for all other states. This makes some intuitive sense as data centers actually seek out states with cheap, reliable power, so the causality likely runs the opposite direction,” IER explained.

The IER analysis acknowledged a “slightly positive but still statistically insignificant relationship” between the proliferation of AI-related data center construction and operation and the pace of consumer electric power rates.

The IER study comes at a time of increasing controversy in Congress and the national political conversation pitting those who insist there is a connection between more data centers and higher consumer prices for electric power and others who either aren’t convinced of such a relationship or who view the projected economic benefits of increased reliance upon AI-based technologies as more than exceeding the downsides.

President Donald Trump during his February State of the Union Address introduced his “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” (RPP) in which major AI “companies agree to protect American consumers from price hikes due to data center energy and infrastructure requirements, and lower electricity costs for consumers in the long term” by “[building, bringing, or buying] the new generation resources and electricity needed to satisfy their new energy demands, paying the full cost of those resources whether by building, or buying from, new or otherwise additive power plants” and “where possible, these companies will also add more capacity that serves the broader public by increasing supply.”

To date, seven major companies — including Google, Oracle, Xi, Meta, Microsoft, Open AI, and Amazon — have signed the Trump RPP.

On the other hand, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) jointly introduced legislation imposing a moratorium on AI technology development and thus of new data center construction. Such action is needed, Sanders said, because “we cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy, and the future of humanity. We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue. The time for action is now. We need a federal moratorium on AI data centers.”