President Donald Trump is taking steps to accelerate the development of power plants that will serve artificial intelligence data centers. He announced this initiative alongside an energy emergency declaration during a recent statement.
“I can get the approvals done myself without having to go through years of waiting,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He aims to facilitate immediate construction of these plants using emergency measures.
Earlier in the week, Trump met with various founders of the Stargate Project at the White House. This venture, which includes significant players like SoftBank and OpenAI, plans to invest $100 billion in co-located data centers, starting with a site in Abilene, Texas.
Trump emphasized the need to double the country’s energy supply to ensure the growth of AI capabilities in the U.S. “We need to double the energy we currently have in the United States … for AI to really be as big as we want it to be,” Trump stated, citing competition with countries like China.
He noted that co-locating energy generation facilities with data centers was largely his concept. “Nobody thought this was possible … I told them that what I want you to do is build your electric generating plant right next to your plant as a separate building connected,” he added.
Trump also discussed using coal-fired plants as a backup for data centers, highlighting coal’s resilience, stating, “Nothing can destroy coal, not the weather, not a bomb, nothing.”
His comments on co-location align with insights from newly appointed Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Mark Christie. Christie has expressed support for data centers to be situated next to new power plants to optimize energy resources.
In addition, Christie previously voted against an agreement that would have allowed an Amazon data center near the Susquehanna nuclear power plant to expand its power access. This led Talen Energy to seek a court order to challenge the decision.
However, not everyone is onboard with Trump’s plan. Consumer watchdog group Public Citizen has warned that prioritizing fossil fuel power plants for data centers could lead to increased utility bills and worsened environmental conditions. Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, criticized the move, noting it could harm families and degrade air quality while elevating greenhouse gas emissions.