{"id":1815,"date":"2026-03-19T14:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=1815"},"modified":"2026-03-19T14:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:41:15","slug":"jerome-powell-says-youre-right-to-blame-data-centers-for-making-your-bills-more-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=1815","title":{"rendered":"Jerome Powell says you’re right to blame data centers for making your bills more expensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged Wednesday that the AI-fueled data center boom is contributing to inflation, pushing back on the popular argument that the productivity gains from artificial intelligence should be bringing prices down already.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the short term, what\u2019s happening is we\u2019re building data centers everywhere, and that\u2019s actually putting pressure on all kinds of goods and services that go into building these things,\u201d Powell said at a press conference following the Fed\u2019s decision to hold interest rates steady. \u201cSo that\u2019s actually probably pushing inflation up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments came in response to a question about whether the Fed\u2019s own long-run growth estimates\u2014which officials revised up from 1.8% to 2%\u2014reflected optimism about AI-driven productivity, and whether that should translate into lower inflation and lower rates.<\/p>\n

Powell wasn\u2019t buying the logic, at least not yet. He said AI likely raises the neutral interest rate in the near term rather than lowering it, because the demand side\u2014the massive physical buildout required to power AI\u2014is running ahead of any productivity payoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the near term, you\u2019re not looking at something that would immediately call for lower rates, or that would be lowering inflation,\u201d he said. The disinflationary benefits of AI, he suggested, remain theoretical for now.<\/p>\n

His remarks might serve as vindication to the Americans feeling the squeeze from the data center boom. Goldman Sachs warned last month that consumer electricity prices could jump 6% from 2026 to 2027, driven in part by the strain data centers are placing on the power grid. Utilities requested a record $31 billion in rate increases in 2025\u2014more than double the prior year\u2014and lower-income households are bearing a disproportionate share of those costs.<\/p>\n

A separate report from Wood Mackenzie this week found that data center development is actually slowing, not because demand has cooled but because it\u2019s so high that the grid can\u2019t keep up. Only a third of projects in the pipeline are under active development, and many may never get built.<\/p>\n

Powell noted that the Fed has been watching \u201cmeaningfully higher productivity\u201d for several years now and said he expects it to continue, despite his surprise: \u201cI never thought I\u2019d see this many years of really high productivity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t really started to see the effects of generative AI,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that should certainly contribute. But it\u2019s an empirical question \u2014 is demand growing faster or slower than the supply side?\u201d He tacked on the four-word-phrase that he\u2019d repeat over a dozen times in the press conference: \u201cWe just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

#Jerome #Powell #youre #blame #data #centers #making #bills #expensive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged Wednesday that the AI-fueled data center boom is contributing to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[1974,4299,2162,569,877,1050,2626,1911,4297,176,2456,376,4298,2976,310,866,2675,684,617],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}