Data Processing & Hosting NAICS 518210

Mar 2, 2026 - President Announces Electricity Ratepayer Protection Pledges

• President Trump announced that his administration has struck agreements with major tech firms that would make them pay a greater share of the energy cost burden associated with data centers. The infrastructure build-out for artificial intelligence threatens to further tax the electric grid and raise electricity prices, according to Politico. The "rate payer protection pledges" mean that top tech companies will pay more for electricity in areas where they are building new data centers, according to Trump administration officials. President Trump said during his State of the Union Speech that the major tech companies have the obligation to provide for their own power needs and can build their own power plants so that no one's prices will go up. He added that in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community and very substantially down.
• The US House of Representatives has passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, which would reform the process for obtaining federal permits for projects to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure and boost semiconductor production in the US. Supporters of the SPEED Act argue that it is key to helping the US beat out China and other global competitors for leadership in AI. The SPEED Act would curtail the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates federal reviews for projects that could affect the environment before permits are issued. It would also tighten the timelines for federal agencies to conduct reviews under NEPA and cut the current six-year statute of limitations for challenging a permit decision to 150 days. Proponents say that the legislation would reduce the number of lawsuits that can stall projects for years.

• Data centers around the world may require $6.7 trillion in capital expenditures by 2030 to keep pace with the demand for compute power, according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. The hardware, processors, memory, storage, and energy needed to operate these data centers are collectively known as compute power. Data centers equipped to handle AI processing loads are projected to require $5.2 trillion in capital expenditures, while those powering traditional IT applications are projected to require $1.5 trillion in capital expenditures.
• Revenue for computer data processing and hosting firms increased 11.9% year over year and 4.5% quarter over quarter in the second quarter of 2025, according to the US Census Bureau. Data processing and hosting industry employment decreased slightly and wages for nonsupervisory employees increased slightly during the first eight months of 2025, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Data processing and hosting firms slightly increased their prices during the first nine months of 2025, according to the BLS.