The Nvidia Tax
Residents in Virginia are facing significant increases in their electricity bills, attributed to the rise of data centers in the region. Many blame these facilities for the surge in costs, which have risen dramatically over the past few years. This situation reflects a broader trend across the United States, where residential electricity prices have increased significantly since 2020.
- ▪Electricity prices in Northern Virginia have climbed 267 percent over five years.
- ▪Nearly three-quarters of Virginia voters blame data centers for rising electricity bills.
- ▪Residential electricity prices nationwide have increased more than 36 percent since 2020.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
The Tax You’re Paying on a Chip You Never Bought I live in Virginia, which means I have a front-row seat to the strangest tax increase in modern American life. Nobody voted for it. It isn’t on any ballot. But it’s showing up on the electric bills of people who have never typed a prompt into a chatbot and wouldn’t know a GPU from a garden hose. In January, Consumer Reports profiled a man in Manassas who had lived in the same house for nearly forty years and opened an electricity bill for $281 — roughly triple what he’d paid the month before. He is not a heavy user. He did not buy a data center.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at I, Cringely - on technology.
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