Trump Draws Blood in the Data Center Wars: Big Tech Pays, Not You

redstate.com

The topic of data centers – those nondescript lines of buildings that enable us to run Google searches and AI models all the livelong day – has become a hot political topic this year. The NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) crowd doesn't want them in their communities, but no one really wants to scale back their digital diets in order to absorb the impact having fewer data centers would have on all of us.

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A real conundrum, it would seem. If we want to keep up with technological advances, they have to go somewhere.

Here in Virginia, a huge intra-party fight broke out in the state Democrat caucus over whether or not to extend existing tax breaks to data center operators. The Old Dominion has more operating data centers than any other state, and it's not even particularly close: 398 (with most of them clustered in Northern Virginia) compared to runner-up Texas with 296.

Virginia has attracted so much data center business because of the generous tax breaks it offers on expensive things like servers. The Democrat family feud broke out when one side wanted to kill off the incentives because businesses are evil, while Gov. Abigail Spanberger's side wanted to extend the tax breaks so she could continue to cosplay as a "moderate" for a while longer. Eventually, they agreed to keep the tax breaks and add a new electricity tax, because that's what Democrats do. 

SEE ALSO: Georgia, Texas, Virginia: New Data Centers Mean Cheaper Electricity

'Data Center Diva' and 'Amazon Don': Virginia Democrats Air Budget Feud in Public

President Trump is addressing this same issue, but on a national level. In a Thursday afternoon visit to the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the president promoted the expansion of his “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” the goal of which is to "guarantee that data centers’ energy needs will not increase household electricity costs for American citizens."

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In his Thursday remarks, the president said his administration was making "incredible progress" in its efforts "to ensure that as new data centers go up... electricity bills for American families will actually come down..."

.@POTUS: "We're here today to continue the incredible progress we’re making in communities nationwide to ensure that as new data centers go up... electricity bills for American families will actually come down... With the Trump Administration's Ratepayer Protection Plan, American innovators and consumers [win] together because we're insisting that AI data centers and big tech companies pay their own way."

He also revealed that over 220 utilities, companies, state governments had signed on as partners in those efforts. These partners pledge to "protect American consumers from price hikes due to data center energy and infrastructure requirements, and lower electricity costs for consumers in the long term."

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President Trump may be trying to quell the AI/data center backlash that seems to be brewing on the right. A new group called Humans First held a series of protests last weekend over what they've billed as "Big AI" taking over American communities. 

AI data centers are ground zero for Big AI imposing on our lives. The unaccountable build out of data centers, with no say from communities and significant local impacts, is an unacceptable infringement on our liberty. 

These data centers are a necessary evil, perhaps, but Trump’s message seems to be that “necessary” doesn’t have to mean everyday Americans get stuck with the bill.

And that’s the distinction the White House is trying to draw as the backlash grows: America can’t realistically win the AI race and maintain its technological edge without building more data centers. But, neither should hardworking families have to watch their electric bills spike because of the staggering amounts of power needed to run them.

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Let's face it, the data centers are coming whether we like it or not. The real political fight now is who is going to pay for them.

Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.

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