Electricity prices rose 5.9% in May from a year earlier, the government's consumer price index shows, running well ahead of the 4.2% pace for overall inflation, AP reporter Christopher Rugaber wrote on July 13 [1]. As early as 2025 that gauge had settled back toward 2% a year. The gap opened up as utilities across the country add generating capacity to feed artificial-intelligence data centers, and Goldman Sachs economists forecast in February that power prices would climb 6% this year, 6% again next year, and an above-average 3% in 2028 [1].

The rise in bills is the household edge of a much larger buildout. Four companies alone -- Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft -- are expected to spend about $720 billion this year, most of it on data centers, which draw down chip supplies and electrical capacity at the same time [1]. JPMorgan Chase estimates some computer-memory chips will have jumped as much as 400% in price between 2024 and the end of this year [1].

The paper has been here before. When it covered Meta's Alberta campus and its 970-megawatt gas plant, the story turned on the generation, interconnection, and measured load behind an AI power claim rather than a promoter's press release. AP's national series asks a narrower but sturdier question: not what one campus draws, but what the average customer already pays. The 5.9% is a bounded national increase, not every dollar pinned on a single data center.

That distinction is where the framing splits. Boosters treat the spending as infrastructure abundance, a case in which building more supply eventually lowers costs; Kevin Warsh, who became Fed chair on May 22, has argued AI should make the economy more efficient over time [1]. Critics read every higher bill as direct capture by AI. AP reports the near-term reality both sides talk past: John Williams of the New York Fed warned that if AI demand keeps outrunning supply, "you don't look through this," meaning the central bank could raise rates rather than dismiss the price shock as temporary [1].

Chip-driven electronics prices may peak this year -- Apple has already raised MacBook and iPad prices roughly 15% to 25%, pushing a top MacBook to $1,999 from $1,699, and Microsoft adds $100 to the Xbox on August 1 [1]. Power costs are the slower burn. Chips can be restocked; new transmission and generation cannot, which is why experts told AP electricity increases will run into 2028 or beyond. For the household, the question is who pays and for how long: 5.9% now, a Goldman path through 2028, and no promise that the meter turns back.

-- DARA OSEI, London