{"id":133813,"date":"2026-08-08T16:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/133813\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:46:17","slug":"trump-says-ai-data-centers-could-be-bigger-than-oil-after-texas-governor-places-moratorium-on-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/133813\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says AI data centers ‘could be bigger than oil’ after Texas Governor places moratorium on construction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"President<\/a> Chip Somodevilla and Brandon Bell\/ Getty Images <\/p>\n

Mark President Donald Trump down as an unabashed booster of the data center buildout. <\/p>\n

“They are tremendously important for the economics. For Texas to say no to data centers is a mistake in the sense that it could be bigger than oil,” Trump said in a Punchbowl News interview published Friday.<\/a> “Data centers could be bigger than oil.” <\/p>\n

Must Read <\/p>\n

Trump was referring to a Monday announcement<\/a> from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to impose a moratorium on the construction of data centers until state regulators are able to audit the proposed ones now seeking to be connected to the Texas power grid. <\/p>\n

The president continued: “There are a lot of communities that want them, but more importantly, and bad for us, there are a lot of countries that want them. And if we turn off on data centers, we turn off on AI.” <\/p>\n

The split on data centers <\/p>\n

Trump’s robust defense of data centers will put him out of step with public opinion. About 70% of Americans oppose a data center being constructed in their neighborhood, according to Heatmap News polling in June.<\/a> <\/p>\n

About seven in 10 (71%) of Americans responded similarly in a Gallup poll published in May.<\/a> Data centers represent a source of friction in the upcoming November midterms, given their role<\/a> in driving up electricity demand and yielding sharp monthly power bill increases for many Americans. <\/p>\n

The president also said data center developers are “becoming like a utility, a public utility” and touted the administration’s efforts to fast-track the permitting process that connects the facilities onto the electric grid. <\/p>\n

Early in his second term, Trump prioritized the AI race and scaling back regulation to allow development of the nascent technology. However, the Trump administration started taking steps<\/a> towards greater oversight over frontier AI models in recent months. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration has also sought to limit utility bill increases. The White House recently pushed for more governors, electricity companies, and data center developers to sign onto a <\/a>voluntary ratepayer protection pledge meant to shield families from utility bill increases. However, experts are skeptical<\/a> about the nonbinding pledge materializing into major savings for Americans, since hyperscalers continue an virtually unchecked data center buildout that will heighten electricity demand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chip Somodevilla and Brandon Bell\/ Getty Images Mark President Donald Trump down as an unabashed booster of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,85,362,625,364,106,66471],"class_list":["post-133813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-data-center","tag-dave-ramsey","tag-donald-trump","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-texas","tag-texas-power-grid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}