A Senate investigation says some claims AI hyperscalers make about the costs and benefits of their data centers, in permit applications, are misleading.

The U.S. Senate has been conducting a year-long investigation into AI data centers, and its findings suggest that some developers have misled the public about the costs and benefits these projects bring to their communities. According to Time, data center developers have routinely pointed to the number of construction jobs that projects create in neighborhoods, but many have allegedly refused to disclose how many permanent positions the facilities will support once they become operational. A few companies that did provide figures cite a ratio of one permanent position for every megawatt of capacity. At that ratio, a 100-megawatt development, which consumes roughly as much electricity as 100,000 homes, would employ only 100 people.

"Congress must hold Big Tech accountable so these companies pay their fair share," Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told the publication. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) also said, "This report lays bare what we have long known: working Americans and local communities are footing the bill for Big Tech's massive expansion of data centers, while these companies continue to operate without transparency."

Beyond the lack of permanent jobs, the investigation examined the tax incentives these companies receive from local and state governments. It found that although property-tax breaks draw critics' attention during the application process, sales-tax exemptions on computer equipment are reportedly more lucrative, especially as these sites maintain, replace, and upgrade their hardware. The report estimated that 39% of a 1GW data center's spending goes to expensive GPUs. If data centers do not deliver the jobs and economic benefits they have promised, states are losing a significant amount of revenue.

The investigation also found that the surveyed companies, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Digital Realty, and Equinix, are reluctant to cover the costs of the additional infrastructure needed to serve their data centers, even though they previously promised to "pay their own way." While the companies said they were willing to pay direct costs, they argued they should not be responsible for larger investments, such as new power plants and transmission lines, that could benefit other customers, even though those investments are primarily driven by their power demands.

Efforts to legislate the ratepayer protection pledge that data center developers signed earlier this year have already failed, as senators considered it "toothless." The investigation shows that Congress is not giving up and is pursuing a broader effort to regulate the infrastructure behind AI, particularly its massive power consumption and other issues that residents living near these facilities have protested.