President Donald Trump urged the United States to build more data centres on 29 September, warning that other countries would gain the economic benefits if projects went abroad. Speaking to reporters after a White House meeting with technology leaders, he pointed to construction in Finland and proposed benefits for the communities that host American facilities, The Epoch Times reported.
Key points
- Trump said companies building data centres would help host communities and floated a dividend for residents.
- Technology executives signed an accord committing to stronger oversight of advanced AI systems at the White House meeting.
- Palm Beach County has paused new applications for data centres with anticipated peak electrical loads of at least 50 megawatts.
- Texas has halted data centre permits pending reviews of electricity and water use.
Trump proposes benefits for host communities
“Frankly, I want them built in America,” Trump told reporters. He said data centres were being built in Finland and elsewhere, and warned that countries hosting them could make a fortune at the United States’ expense. His case for domestic construction rested on benefits he expected the facilities to bring to their host communities, including financial support from the companies operating them.
Trump said those companies would be “very generous” to communities and would help schools and teachers. He also raised the possibility of bonuses for teachers or payments to residents, which he called a dividend, Newsweek reported. He presented those benefits as an expectation of what companies would do, rather than as a condition attached to a project approval.
The White House meeting included Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta also attended. The executives signed an accord committing to strengthen oversight of advanced AI systems, according to The Epoch Times. Trump made his data centre remarks after the meeting.
Trump had made a more confrontational appeal to prospective host communities on 31 August. In a social media post, he argued that data centres would bring jobs and lower taxes and said places rejecting them risked becoming poorer, ABC News reported. Vice-President JD Vance attributed much of the backlash to higher utility bills. He argued that companies building data centres should add power to the grid rather than draw it down.
Palm Beach County pauses projects above 50 megawatts
Local authorities are taking decisions that can delay construction. Palm Beach County commissioners voted 6-0 on 24 September for a one-year moratorium covering new data centre applications with an anticipated peak electrical load of at least 50 megawatts. The county will review environmental effects, noise and electricity bills before updating its zoning rules, Fox News reported. The pause applies to new applications rather than permanently barring data centres.
Residents at the commissioners’ meeting raised concerns about power bills, water and the environment. One resident described Project Tango, a proposed data centre near homes and an elementary school, as a reason to pause approvals. In July, commissioners voted 6-1 against an expansion of roughly 1.67 million square feet for that project. Existing approvals for two 100,000-square-foot data centre buildings remained in place.
That distinction matters to the people living near a proposed site. A county vote against additional floor space can limit a project without reversing construction already approved. Palm Beach County’s moratorium likewise gives commissioners time to consider where future facilities may be built, while leaving the existing Project Tango approvals in place. The resident who spoke at the meeting argued against building large data centres in the area at all.
Texas reviews 474 gigawatts of demand requests
Texas Governor Greg Abbott took a different step on 21 September, ordering the state’s environmental agency to halt permits for data centre projects until reviews of their electricity and water use are completed. Abbott said Texas had received requests totalling 474 gigawatts of new electricity demand, roughly five times its record peak load. He attributed about 90 per cent of those requests to data centres and said the projects must pay their own way.
The Texas measure places a state permitting decision ahead of the projects while their resource demands are examined. Vance has argued that data centre builders should add generating capacity. Abbott has said they should cover their own costs. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the Texas Water Development Board are carrying out formal assessments over worries about the stability of the electricity network and availability of water in years ahead.
