WASHINGTON - Leaders of the nation’s largest technology companies gathered at the White House on Wednesday to sign a pledge committing them to cover the full costs of the enormous amounts of electricity their artificial intelligence data centers consume — a move that backers say will shield American households from higher utility bills and may eventually lower them.

By Jarrett Renshaw and Laila Kearney March 4 (Reuters) - Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and several artificial intelligence companies signed a pledge at the White House on Wednesday to bear the cost of new electricity generation to power their data centers.

The debate over how to regulate data centers in Illinois is intensifying as lawmakers struggle to balance a host of competing interests.