President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that tech companies need to overcome resistance to AI data centers.
Trump made the remarks at a speech unveiling his "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" at the Environmental Protection Agency.
"You have to convince your communities how great these things are," said Trump. "You can't fight it. You have to go with it."
The construction of data centers around the country, encouraged by the Trump administration as it fast-tracks them past environmental rules, has emerged as a hot-button issue, with many projects becoming politically poisonous and overwhelming majorities of voters across partisan lines opposing construction near them.
Some people object to data centers over their perceived waste of local resources. Others have come to view the issue as a proxy for the spread of AI technology in general.
In many GOP-dominated states, like Florida, the debate over data center construction has created deep fractures in the Republican coalition, with Republicans from various wings of the party at each other's throats over how to handle development.