Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and 22 other governors on Thursday signed onto President Donald Trump’s expanded pledge to protect utility customers from the cost of new, massive data center developments.

Trump first introduced the pledge in March, when he announced major data center builders like Amazon, Google and OpenAI as signatories.

Nearly 200 more stakeholders have joined since.

“President Trump is expanding the Ratepayer Protection Pledge to governors, legislators, developers, and power providers to ensure everyone involved in building and powering data centers covers their own costs instead of passing them on to American families,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a news release.

“The President’s bold action is turning data centers into engines of growth for local communities, while cementing America’s dominance in the global AI race,” she added.

In the pledge, signatories commit to building or buying the additional electricity generation resources and infrastructure upgrades needed to satisfy their power demands — and paying for the full cost. When possible, they’ll also add more capacity benefiting the public.

They’ll operate under separately negotiated rate structures, intended to insulate other customers, and will pay those rates for the power and the infrastructure brought online to serve them — regardless of whether they use all the electricity anticipated or not.

The pledge also includes commitments to boost grid reliability, including by contributing their backup generation resources to prevent power shortages, and for investments in local job creation and workforce development.

About five dozen large AI data centers have been proposed in Indiana over the past two years, according to a tracker maintained by ratepayer advocacy group Citizens Action Coalition.

Public opposition has swelled even as leaders try to balance a push for economic development with rising energy prices and other concerns. Here in Indiana, at least 17 counties have temporary moratoriums on data centers, the IBJ reported.

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