Berkshire’s Greg Abel Says Hyperscalers Must Cover Their Own Grid Costs

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel says the company will serve hyperscale data centers only if their power needs do not raise rates for Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s existing customers. He also said the large technology companies behind those projects should finance the incremental infrastructure their demand requires, placing a direct condition on Berkshire’s pursuit of AI-driven electricity growth.

Abel called rising electricity demand from AI infrastructure a significant opportunity for Berkshire Hathaway and Berkshire Hathaway Energy. But his condition separates new load, the electricity consumed by a customer, from the costs of expanding generation and grid infrastructure to support it. Berkshire’s position is that hyperscalers should pay those added costs rather than residential and commercial customers.

The constraint is consequential because Berkshire Hathaway Energy is already seeing material data-center demand. Data centers represented roughly 8% of its total Iowa load in 2025. Abel projected that AI-related electricity demand could rise by as much as 50% over the next five years, a forecast rather than a committed volume of new demand.

We are interested in serving these hyperscalers ... if there was no impact to the rates of our other customers.

Greg Abel, Berkshire Hathaway CEO, speaking to CNBC

Abel’s formulation addresses the political problem surrounding new computing campuses: who benefits from the demand and who carries the associated costs. He said there is “a lot more pushback” from communities across the U.S. toward data-center construction. Mizuho analysts have said investors see resistance as a potential issue in the coming U.S. midterm elections, citing questions around resource consumption and limited long-term job creation.

What Berkshire’s condition puts on the table

• New AI-related demand can be a growth opportunity for the utility, according to Abel.
• The infrastructure required for that demand should be financed by the hyperscalers creating it, Abel said.
• Existing residential and commercial customers should not see higher rates as a result, Abel said.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy is in the middle of a roughly $34 billion capital-expenditure program. That figure establishes the scale of investment already under way, but it does not specify which projects support AI data centers or how costs will be allocated across individual customers and projects. Abel’s comments make the commercial principle clear: incremental data-center infrastructure is not meant to become a general ratepayer expense.

New York’s Assembly in June passed legislation proposing a one-year pause on issuing data-center permits while the state studies community and environmental effects. The proposal would require hearings before future permits and an environmental impact report. Assembly leaders specifically raised risks that data centers could increase energy costs for ratepayers and strain water resources.

The U.S. has about 4,700 data centers, and the number is growing. For utilities, that creates a prospective source of demand. For builders, Abel’s stance points to a tougher version of the power-supply bargain: obtaining electricity may also require paying directly for the new capacity needed to deliver it without increasing bills for everyone else.