The data center boom is remaking the Midwestern power grid.

Two new developments underscore how large technology companies are set to shape electricity in the coal- and natural-gas-dependent region, potentially changing the energy mix and political messaging in some of the country's largest battleground states:

-- On Wednesday, the Stargate project backed by OpenAI, Oracle and the Trump administration announced a gigawatt-scale artificial intelligence project in Wisconsin, paired with new energy generation.

-- In the same week, Google unveiled plans to support a landmark gas plant in Illinois that it says will capture 90 percent of its carbon emissions.

"As demand for data centers expands beyond traditional hubs, the upper Midwest has become a critical and strategic market," said Dana Adams, president of North America for Vantage Data Centers, which is partnering with OpenAI and Oracle on the Stargate project north of Milwaukee.

The Wisconsin AI campus called "Lighthouse" is expected to be completed in 2028 and create 1,000 long-term jobs. It is one of five projects Stargate floated in September representing more than $400 billion in investment nationwide. The companies did not detail the project's power source, but said it would be " matched with renewable energy purchases annually."

Tech giants are facing the competing pressures of meeting AI demand while aiming to satisfy corporate carbon or renewable targets.

"While tech companies are quick to talk about net-zero goals, the reality we are seeing here in Wisconsin is the construction of gas-burning power plants and delayed coal plant retirements," said Amy Barrilleaux, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Clean Wisconsin.

For Google, carbon capture offers a path to turn to gas to support data centers while meeting its clean energy goals. The company said Thursday it is supporting construction of a 400-megawatt gas plant in Decatur, Illinois, with carbon capture and storage technology at a facility operated by Archer Daniels Midland.

If successful, the Broadwing Energy Center could give a boost to carbon capture at a time when the federal government is pulling back subsidies. The technology is a "critical source of clean firm power," the company said on its blog.

Scrambling politics

Broadwing and Stargate are part of a wave of AI ventures in the Midwest launched in the past year, with cities such as Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, leading much of the buildout. The surge is spurring op-eds from industry supporters who say AI is a win for the economy and backlash from environmentalists warning about the effects on air, water and energy bills.

The boom is also complicating the political impact of rising electricity prices, as Republicans who support President Donald Trump's AI policies raise concerns about how data centers will affect utility bills.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, for example, has backed a law calling on data center developers to pay for power infrastructure costs.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is also adding his voice to the chorus by pressuring the utility Ameren to detail its plans for supplying electricity to data centers, as my colleague Jeffrey Tomich writes today. "People cannot afford their energy bills," Hawley told Jeff.

Rob Dixon, Ameren's senior director of community and economic development, has said infrastructure costs from data centers "are not passed on to other customers."

It's Thursday -- thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Christa Marshall. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to [email protected].

Today in POLITICO Energy's podcast: Ben Lefebvre breaks down how the Trump administration and Qatar are pressuring the EU to roll back a corporate climate rule.

Energy players among White House ballroom donors

Some big names in energy contributed to Trump's controversial White House ballroom that has left Washington up in arms about the East Wing's demolition, Timothy Cama writes.

Florida-based NextEra Energy and Continental Resources Chair Harold Hamm are among the names the White House offered Thursday as financiers of the project, which Trump has said would cost as much as $300 million. He has said that no taxpayer funds will be used for the project.

The expansion has drawn ire for the destruction of the East Wing, which Trump initially said would only have its facade removed. The National Park Service owns the grounds of the White House.

Al Capone enters permitting talks

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse seemed to throw cold water on bipartisan permitting talks on Wednesday, questioning why Democrats would come to the table absent assurances that the Trump administration would follow the law.

Whitehouse, the top Democrat of the Environment and Public Works panel, decried what he called the administration's "Al Capone-quality" attacks on clean energy and asked Republican colleagues to buck Trump, write Kelsey Brugger and Nico Portuondo.

"Why would we want to do bipartisan permitting reform during an administration that won't faithfully execute that law?" Whitehouse said during a hearing.

Whitehouse's comments come as Republicans have been talking about wooing Democrats on a permitting deal and ongoing behind-the-scenes discussions. Those discussions have focused on the broad contours of a deal to speed up and simplify environmental review for projects of all kinds.

Drill, baby, drill

The Trump administration plans to propose opening federal waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to offshore drilling, according to two people familiar with the plan, writes Ben Lefebvre.

The administration is expected to offer acres off the southern coast of California and "at least a small sliver" of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, said one of the people granted anonymity because the plan is not yet public. It's unclear if that would include waters off Florida, where elected leaders of both parties have opposed drilling along their shoreline for decades.

The move would likely to antagonize coastal state governors, who forced the president to back down from a similar plan in his first term. A White House official downplayed the proposal, characterizing it as a draft from a junior policy staffer that had not circulated in the White House.

China's energy dominance: China is building nearly twice the number of nuclear reactors as the rest of the world combined, and is also investing heavily in breakthrough technologies.

This much we agree on: Tax incentives and technology breakthroughs are pushing ahead the commercialization of geothermal energy, the renewable source that has bipartisan support.

Knock on wood: The battery recycling company Redwood Materials has raised $350 million to expand its energy storage business.

A showcase of some of our best subscriber content.

Trump's surprise move to sanction Russia's largest oil companies will help the European Union kick Russian oil out of the bloc for good.

The Interior Department announced a plan today to reopen Alaska's wilderness for drilling and mining, including preparing for oil and gas lease sales on 1.56 million acres of coastal plain in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Electric vehicle charging stations in Montana, Oregon and Maine saw the highest increase in use during the last quarter, suggesting Americans are using their EVs on summer vacations, new research shows.

That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.

AI, the Midwest is calling