Trump Defends Data Centers, Says 'They'll Go to China' If Shut Down
At a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, President Donald Trump defended data centers that power artificial intelligence, stating 'You can't just turn them off. They'll go to China.'
The data center industry has become a contentious issue in Ohio and nationwide, with voters citing concerns about electricity prices, farmland, and water supplies.
Republican Sen. Jon Husted introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act to stop data centers from raising electricity costs and make them pay their own way. The bill would require states to consider standards ensuring that large electricity users, including data centers, pay for the power generation, transmission, and other infrastructure needed to serve them.
Ohio is already a major hub for data centers, with Amazon planning to invest $10 billion in the state's data centers by 2030. Nvidia has also committed $1.5 billion to SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary developing a massive Ohio data-center campus for OpenAI.