Trump Proposes Emergency Declaration for AI Data Center Power Plants

Trump Says AI Is So Important He'll Build New Power Plants Attached to Datacenters

"I can get the approvals done myself without having to go through years of waiting." During a consortium of global billionaires and power players, President Donald Trump said AI is so important that he plans to attach literal powerplants to AI datacenters. "We're going to make it so that the plants will have their own electric generating facilities attached right to their plant," Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, per The Hill. "They don't have to worry about a utility." As they stand today, AI datacenters use massive amounts of energy from existing electrical grids. That insatiable hunger is already starting to hamstring the energy sector, which seems to be why Trump wants to cut out the middleman and give these datacenters their own power sources. He apparently plans to make this happen via his emergency energy declaration, which was issued immediately after his inauguration. Many consider it a thank-you gift to the fossil fuel industry for its financial support during his reelection campaign; with its "drill, baby, drill" ethos, this unprecedented bill is part of Trump's broader effort to "unleash" traditional -- read: nonrenewable -- energy companies from the binds of regulation. During his speech at Davos, an AI-enthused Trump seemed bullish on the prospect of new energy projects for the technology's infrastructure and suggested he'd get them done by any means necessary. "We're going to build electric generating facilities, they are going to build. I'm going to get them the approval," the president said. "Under emergency declaration, I can get the approvals done myself without having to go through years of waiting." While that kind of big Trump talk often comes without either intellectual or logistical backup, in the case of AI infrastructure he finds himself aligned with powerful interests -- and the reality, whatever you think of AI, that the US power grid is woefully dated. "The big problem is we need double the energy we currently have in the United States -- can you imagine? -- for AI to really be as big as we want to have it," the real estate mogul outlined. "So, I'm going to give emergency declarations so that they can start building them almost immediately." Perhaps most chillingly, Trump also said that the companies looking to get in on this AI energy boom can have "anything they want, and they may have coal as a backup." Naturally, there were zero mentions of how harmful such massive energy usage is and will be for the environment, or how he plans to pay for such sweeping energy projects, which may well not be part of his $500 billion AI investment package. Figuring out the latter will be the job of the people he's once again employing on the taxpayer dime -- and god help whoever tells him what the bill is gonna be.

Trump says he will approve power plants for AI through emergency declaration

U.S. President Donald Trump makes a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. President Donald Trump said Thursday he will approve the construction of power plants for artificial intelligence through an emergency declaration. "We're going to build electric generating facilities. I'm going to get the approval under emergency declaration. I can get the approvals done myself without having to go through years of waiting," Trump said in a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Trump said the plants can use whatever fuel they want, including coal as a backup. Power demand from artificial intelligence data centers is forecast to surge in the coming years. The tech companies building the centers that support AI have primarily focused on procuring renewable energy, though they have shown a growing interest in nuclear power to meet their growin energy needs. But analysts believe natural gas will play a pivotal role, at least in the short- to-medium term because it's in plentiful supply, is more reliable than renewables and can be deployed much faster than nuclear.

Trump pledges fast-track for AI data center power plants

Driving the news: Trump said that many people want to build power plants, which is "going to be a very big thing," and intends to approve them under the emergency declaration "without having to go through years of waiting." Zoom in: He claimed that it was his idea of "building an electric generating plant right next to an existing plant as a separate building." Between the lines: Data centers consume as much power as a small city, and as the AI boom and race with China continues, they will require even more resources.