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US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that companies building data centers must pay a "share of profits" to residents of the areas where these centers are located if they want their projects to gain public support.
Trump added in a post on the Truth Social platform, "I have watched this process closely, and I have seen that data centers that were strongly rejected in a certain area became highly supported once a financial deal was struck."
Data centers that fuel artificial intelligence development have sparked political controversy in residential areas across the United States due to the large amount of water and energy they require, with opposition successfully attracting voters from various ideological backgrounds.
The Trump administration, which has prioritized the rapid development of artificial intelligence to compete with China, has noted the shift in voter sentiment.
Trump said in the post, "I have mandated that new, large, and in some cases, massive data centers generate the electricity they need and provide the surplus to the local community or the local power grid, or sell it."
In February, Trump said that big tech companies should build their own power plants to supply data centers in order to protect consumers from rising energy bills.
Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic and billionaire Elon Musk have in the past few days laid out plans to distribute some of the gains from the AI boom.
Anthropic stated over the weekend that it is committed to allocating five percent of its shares to a new "public benefit" fund, and Elon Musk pledged on Monday to give one share of SpaceX stock to "every child in America."
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