Chicago's Biggest Energy Supplier Wants To Prevent AI From Hiking Your Electricity Bills: Here's The Proposed Solution

Gil Quiniones, CEO of Commonwealth Edison, on Friday called for new rules to make sure the surge in power demand due to artificial intelligence (AI) does not result in higher energy costs for the average consumer.

Commonwealth Edison, an Exelon Corp. (EXC) company, is Chicago’s biggest energy supplier. Speaking at the Global Quantum Forum in Chicago, Quiniones called for modifications to power tariffs to ensure utility companies can collect higher deposits from data center operators, according to a report by Bloomberg.

“What really needs to happen is to make sure that we’re not shifting costs due to data centers powered by AI to all the other customers,” he said.

Quiniones also wants data centers to post collateral in case the loads and revenues do not materialize as planned. This would safeguard power utilities from an abrupt decline in revenue and capacity going unused in the event that demand from data centers takes a hit in the future. 

Data centers have been among the key pillars of the ongoing AI revolution – Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang previously said data centers would transform into “AI factories” to power this revolution. Overall, he believes data center buildouts will hit the $1 trillion mark by 2028.

While the increasing demand for AI has resulted in power utilities being unable to meet energy needs, companies like Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google have hashed out deals to power their data centers.

EXC’s stock is up 16% year-to-date and 20% over the past 12 months. Stocktwits data indicates that retail sentiment surrounding the shares was in the ‘bearish’ territory.

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Also See: Trump Bemoans 'Radical Globalism,' Targets US Tech Companies Building And Hiring In China, India: 'We Want You To Put America First'

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