A yearlong US Senate investigation has concluded that some of the biggest hyperscalers misled the public about the real costs and benefits of AI data centers, according to findings first shared with TIME. The probe was led by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, alongside Senators Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
The report examined seven major data center developers: Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Digital Realty and Equinix. Senators' staff requested information from each company and interviewed employees, and the findings are expected to feed a broader push in Congress for new guardrails on the power-hungry projects.
What the Senate investigation found
According to the report, data center companies often highlight construction jobs when arguing for incentives, but several refused to provide full details on permanent employment. Some told investigators that permanent staffing runs at roughly one worker per megawatt of power demand, meaning a 100-megawatt facility could use as much electricity as 100,000 homes while employing about 100 permanent workers after construction.
The investigators also found that the most lucrative incentives are often not the headline property-tax breaks but sales-tax exemptions on computer equipment. GPUs alone account for an estimated 39% of spending at an average 1-gigawatt AI data center, the report says.
NDAs, tax dollars and power bills
All four major tech companies in the probe, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, routinely sought nondisclosure agreements during data center development, according to the report, and some acknowledged asking government officials to sign them. While such deals often involve commercially sensitive information, the report argues NDAs have restricted public scrutiny of agreements involving tax dollars, utility rates and public infrastructure.
