Here's some food for thought. What if I told you that amid all the excitement about AI and how it is transforming our lives, some of that could eventually show up on your electricity bill? That would be interesting, no?Let's break it down and take a look at how that might turn out to be the case in reality.Now, when we talk about AI, we tend to imagine smarter chatbots, robot innovation, and tech stocks taking off to the moon. However, there's a much less glamorous side to all of that. I mean, somebody has to be the one to build enormous buildings to house all those computers, and then also keep them running around the clock. Yes, I'm talking about data centres here. And these buildings need electricity to work and cooling systems to stop them from overheating.So, picture this. You have tens of these buildings now suddenly turning up in the same town; that is in fact what is happening across the globe. Now, the local power grid wasn't necessarily built for that much demand in mind. As such, the utility company might have to bring in more power, upgrade substations and lay new cables. Those things are not cheap. And depending on how some of those costs are shared, some of the bill could end up with households and businesses.And it's not just electricity, either. These projects need plenty of raw material like steel and copper, alongside specialised equipment and skilled construction workers. If the tech giants are scrambling for the same supplies and contractors all at once, those prices can get pushed even higher.I wouldn't blame you for thinking that we are talking about some distant hypothetical situation here. But not quite. Dallas Fed researchers had earlier this year estimate that the impact of data centres on electricity prices alone could add around 0.04 to 0.13 percentage points to annual US inflation by 2030 under plausible scenarios.Now, that estimate isn't exactly an inflation crisis by itself. But with the Fed already in a massive struggle to get inflation back to 2%, it is just another potential headache to deal with.And this is all before considering the fact that we could also see businesses start passing higher power and building costs on to customers. That will just be another reason for the Fed to consider tighter monetary policy amid the "higher for longer" narrative. That could also keep Treasury yields elevated, putting more pressure on expensive tech stocks. Quite the irony, no?Of course, there is also the other side of the argument. AI could also make businesses more efficient and bring costs down over time. I don't doubt that. But while the promise is to make things cheaper and more efficient, the road to get there could prove to be rather expensive. This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.