President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on the emerging need for massive data centers to power AI brains every nation-state will now need to be a world power in the years to come. He offered a carrot to the main sides of the incoming debate, the taxpayers who may be on the hook to pay for the data centers, the locals affected by the data centers and the corporatists relying on those data centers for personal power.
He characterized it in the American context, writing, “We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and Number One in AI. Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way,” His post does not address another conflict-of-interest crisis, water resources, which are also needed in large volumes to fund the AI brains.
Blurb:
Trump seeks to quell data center rebellion – Washington Post
In a bid to tamp down growing unrest in communities over tech giants’ expansion of power-hungry data centers, President Donald Trump said his administration would push Silicon Valley companies to ensure their massive computer farms do not drive up people’s electricity bills, seizing on a promise Tuesday by Microsoft to be a better neighbor.
The Trump administration has gone all in on artificial intelligence, pushing aside concerns within the MAGA movemen and seeking to sweep away regulations that it says hamper innovation. But neighbors of the vast warehouses of computer chips that form the technology’s backbone – many of them in areas otherwise supportive of the president – have grown increasingly concerned about how the facilities sap power from the grid, guzzle water to stay cool and secure tax breaks from local governments. And Trump now appears to be recalibrating his approach.
“We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and Number One in AI. Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way,’” Trump said Monday in a post on his Truth Social site, teasing Microsoft’s announcement of an initiative to address the issue and framing it as part of a broader effort by his administration.
